U.S.-Freed ‘Combatant’ Is Returned to Saudi Arabia

A Saudi American who had been captured in Afghanistan and held in U.S. solitary confinement for nearly three years without charge was freed and returned to his family Monday after agreeing to forfeit his U.S. citizenship.

Yaser Esam Hamdi, who was captured in Afghanistan in late 2001 during the U.S.-led battle against the Taliban regime, landed in Saudi Arabia about noon Monday, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Mansour Turki said.

“We are happy that he is home. He is happy that he is home,” Hamdi’s father, Esam Fouad Hamdi, said by telephone from Saudi Arabia’s Persian Gulf port city of Jubayl. “He is not a Taliban or anything like that.”

The deal with the U.S. government that resulted in the release of Yaser Esam Hamdi required that he give up his American citizenship and live in Saudi Arabia for five years. He also had to renounce terrorism and agree not to sue the United States over his imprisonment. Hamdi was barred from ever traveling to Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Pakistan or Syria -- but there were questions whether the travel provisions would be enforced.

A Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman said the government would not impose any conditions on Hamdi unless he was found to have broken Saudi law.

“So far we have nothing against him, nothing to make us consider him a criminal,” Turki said.

Hamdi was born in Louisiana in 1980 to Saudi parents and grew up in Saudi Arabia.

He contends that he never fought against the United States and that he had been trying to get out of Afghanistan when he was captured.

Hamdi was taken to the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and then transferred to a Navy brig in Norfolk, Va., after officials realized he was a U.S. citizen. He was later moved to a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that Hamdi and other detainees classified as enemy combatants could not be held indefinitely without being charged. That led to the negotiations for Hamdi’s release.

Like Hamdi, the 550 prisoners at Guantanamo are classified as enemy combatants, a status that affords fewer legal protections than prisoner of war. About 60 of the men are contesting their detentions in federal courts, but the majority have never seen a lawyer. Four have been charged.