Moath al-Alwi was captured by Pakistani forces near the Afghanistan border in December 2001 and given over to the United States military.

A Yemeni national, al-Alwi has said he was fleeing for safety, not a fighter, when he was abducted and sold to the US military, which in January 2002 transported him across the world to a tropical prison camp at the US Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In the nearly 20 years since, the notorious military prison at Guantanamo has become a symbol of US human rights abuses. Many detainees – mostly Muslim men – were tortured or held for years and even decades without charges, trials or basic legal rights.

One of a few dozen remaining detainees at Guantanamo Bay, al-Alwi has never been charged with any crime, and yet remains in prison. The US Supreme Court in 2019 turned down his petition without comment.

With the departure of American troops from Afghanistan, rights advocates see an opportunity for President Joe Biden to fulfill his 2020 political pledge to close the prison. Others say the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, some of whose new leaders are former Guantanamo prisoners, creates a new obstacle.

Read the full article about political prisoners by William Roberts at Al Jazeera.