The Sudanese man Ibrahim Othman Ibrahim Idris was sent to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba on the day he was thought to have been Osama bin Laden’s bodyguard. Later, former US President Barack Obama released him because he was too frail to pose a threat. He passed away on Wednesday at the age of 60, according to the “New York Times.”
A lawyer in Washington, D.C., named Christopher Curran, who represented Sudanese interests, claimed that “the medical complications he received from Guantánamo” were to blame for the death. The exact cause of death was not known right away, but another former Sudanese prisoner, Sami al-Hajj, told the newspaper Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that Idris was very sick and lived with his mother in Port Sudan. He also stated that Idris had been tortured in Guantánamo.
Before the 9/11 attacks, Idris was on the run from the Battle of Tora Bora in December 2001. He was caught in Pakistan. According to a leaked US military intelligence profile from 2008, he was first thought to be connected to bin Laden’s security information. However, he has not been charged with a crime, and this claim has been rejected.
On January 11, 2002, Idris was sent to Guantánamo with 20 other prisoners. The day that the “Pentagon” opened “Camp X-ray,” an outdoor prison where enemy fighters could be held and questioned. Many people have seen a photo from that day showing the men sitting on their knees in orange clothing with their hands tied and their eyes covered.
Idris spent a lot of time in the prison’s mental health unit, where a psychiatrist for the army decided he had schizophrenia, according to his medical papers. He had diabetes and high blood pressure while he was in jail as well.
On December 18, 2013, he was sent back home. In one very rare case, the government did not fight a federal court suit to free a Guantánamo prisoner. He said, “If the prisoner is so sick that he cannot go back to the battlefield, he must be sent back to his home country,” which was based on both local and foreign laws. The United States did not argue with Idris’ lawyers when they said that he was so sick that he could not be a threat to anyone.
On Wednesday, Ian C. Moss, a former State Department official who set up Idris’ transfer, said, “Given how sick he was, it was clear that he would get the best care at home with his family.”
Sudan was still on the list of countries that support terrorism at that time. Idris was able to come back to the United States, though, because a federal court cleared him to do so.
