The US Just Released Four Guantanamo Detainees to Afghanistan

The US freed four Afghan prisoners from the detention center at Guantanamo Bay and flew them to their native country late Friday night — the first detainee release to Afghanistan since 2009.

"The United States coordinated with the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures," the US Department of Defense said in a statement.

The coordinated release of the men — who had been cleared to leave the prison since 2009 — represents an improving relationship with Afghanistan's new president Ashraf Ghani, officials told Reuters.

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All 4 detainees sent home to Afghanistan from — Carol Rosenberg (@carolrosenberg)December 20, 2014

The men — Mohammad Zahir, Khi Ali Gul, Shawali Khan, and Abdul Ghani — were taken to Guantanamo in 2003 due to US suspicions they were affiliated with the Taliban or other armed groups. But none of the men were ever found guilty, and Ghani's lawyer told VICE News his client was framed. Ghani was accused of firing rockets at US bases, but the charges against him were dropped.

The lawyer, Barry Wingard, claims Ghani was captured by "rivals from a neighboring town," then "sold to US forces for a profit." Wingard noted that Ghani never left Afghanistan before his imprisonment, and said he "should never have been imprisoned."

"We never doubted the innocence of this man and tried repeatedly to get him to trial or to be released," Wingard said. "After many years of terrible treatment at the hands of his captors, Abdul returns to his homeland as innocent as the day he was taken from his family."

The Center for Constitutional Rights said that another released detainee was also held in Guantanamo on the "flimsiest of allegations."

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"Shawali Khan grew up on a farm in southern Afghanistan," Baher Azmy, the organization's legal director, said in a statement. "His family was poor, and he had little formal education. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, he was living in Kandahar and working as a shopkeeper. After the US invasion of Afghanistan, he was employed for several months as a driver for the US-backed Karzai government. He was held at Guantanamo for 11 years without charge."

The four freed detainees are among more than two dozen Guantanamo prisoners released in the past year, leaving the detention center with 132 inmates. President Barack Obama has been slowly freeing prisoners since he announced his intention to shutter the facility in 2009.

"We again exclaim that after 13 years, either try the remaining prisoners or release them," Wingard said.

President Ghani — not related to the prisoner Ghani — requested that the four men be handed over months ago, but a US general in Afghanistan voiced reservations about their return, officials told the Miami Herald. Another recent release of six prisoners to Uruguay also took months due to the hesitation by the Department of Defense.

The Afghanistan transfer occurred the same day that Obama released a statement denouncing the latest vote by Congress against releasing any Guantanamo prisoners to the US.

"The Guantanamo detention facility's continued operation undermines our national security," Obama said in the statement. "We must close it. I call on members from both sides of the aisle to work with us to bring this chapter in American history to a close."

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VICE News reporter Jason Leopold contributed to this article.

Follow Meredith Hoffman on Twitter:@merhoffman

Photo via Flickr