Al-Qaida suspect transferred from US prison to Saudi Arabia

By ELLEN KNICKMEYER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Saudi man long held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as a suspected al-Qaida operative has been returned to his home country. U.S. military officials announced the repatriation of Ghassan al Sharbi on Wednesday. It’s the latest transfer aiming to empty the Guantanamo military prison of detainees from the United States’ post-9/11 roundup of suspected violent extremists. Al Sharbi had been one of the Middle Eastern students singled out by the FBI before 9/11 as he trained at a Phoenix flight school. He was captured in Pakistan in 2002. U.S. military officials charged al Sharbi but eventually dropped efforts to put him on trial.