KUALA LUMPUR – The government is intensifying efforts to repatriate two Malaysians detained at the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba.
While in New York, Home Minister Datuk Seri Saifuddin Nasution Ismail said that he met with Special US Representative for Guantanamo Affairs Tina Kaidanow to discuss efforts to bring the citizens back home.
“This is my second meeting with (Tina), and a follow-up from my visit to Guantanamo Bay,” he said in a statement posted on X (formerly Twitter).
“I have personally met both Malaysians detained there. Their stories have really touched me.
“This is about life, repentance, and the opportunity to become a better person. God willing, we will expedite the process for their return to Malaysia.”
In 2003, Mohammed Nazir Lep and Mohammed Farik Amin were arrested in Thailand and put under solitary confinement in black sites operated by the Central Intelligence Agency.
The two men were subsequently moved to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.
They were arrested for allegedly being involved in the Bali twin bombings in October 2002, which resulted in the deaths of 202 people, as well as the bombing of the JW Marriott hotel in Jakarta in August a year later.
Nazir and Farik were reportedly first charged in August 2021, but the court accepted their claim that they had “biased and incompetent” Bahasa Malaysia interpreters.
The trial’s lead prosecutor, George Kraehe, proposed a trial date for the two men, and another Indonesian accused of participating in the bombings, in March 2025. – September 25, 2023
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