Former Guantanmo prisoners write to President Biden: Close Guantanamo before its twentieth anniversary

London - Today the “<a href="https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2021/01/29/an-open-letter-to-president-biden-about-guantanamo/">The New York Review of Books</a>” published an open letter by seven former Guantanamo Bay prisoners, to President Biden offering him a constructive 8 point plan to close down the detention centre. The seven men who are, Mansoor Adayfi (Yemen), Moazzam Begg (UK), Lakhdar Boumediane (France), Sami Al Hajj (Qatar), Ahmed Errachidi (Morocco), Mohammed Ould Slahi (Mauritania) and Moussa Zemmouri (Belgium), urge President Biden to immediately release all prisoners who are cleared so far, to do away with the ‘forever prisoner’ designation and scrap the military commissions in favour for trying the men in accordance to the law. They also request that the office of the Special Envoy for Guantánamo Closure which was closed by Trump is reopened. The seven former prisoners call upon President Biden to shape his own legacy on Guantanamo Bay by closing it before its looming twentieth anniversary. <strong>Commenting on the open letter, CAGE Outreach Director, Moazzam Begg said:</strong> “Seven former Guantanamo prisoners - who are also authors - wrote an open letter to President Biden asking him to build his own legacy on the political, moral and legal disaster of the prison camp by closing it. We reminded him that this notorious place is a bipartisan project for which both Republicans and Democrats are responsible and that he needs to shape his own legacy for which the world will judge him. I was honoured to be among them the seven.”