Pentagon: Detainee was Repatriated from Guantanamo Bay to Tunisia

ARLINGTON, VA - DECEMBER 22: Birds fly near the Pentagon building over the US Air Force Memorial on December 22, 2024 in Arlington, Virginia. Tom Brenner/Getty Images/AFP
ARLINGTON, VA - DECEMBER 22: Birds fly near the Pentagon building over the US Air Force Memorial on December 22, 2024 in Arlington, Virginia. Tom Brenner/Getty Images/AFP
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Pentagon: Detainee was Repatriated from Guantanamo Bay to Tunisia

ARLINGTON, VA - DECEMBER 22: Birds fly near the Pentagon building over the US Air Force Memorial on December 22, 2024 in Arlington, Virginia. Tom Brenner/Getty Images/AFP
ARLINGTON, VA - DECEMBER 22: Birds fly near the Pentagon building over the US Air Force Memorial on December 22, 2024 in Arlington, Virginia. Tom Brenner/Getty Images/AFP

The US Department of Defense said on Monday that detainee Ridah Bin Saleh Al-Yazidi was repatriated from Guantanamo Bay to Tunisia.

It said 26 detainees remain at the facility, of which 14 are eligible for transfer.

Al-Yazidi, 59, was airlifted from the base in a secret operation that was completed 11 months after the Defense Department notified Congress that it had reached an agreement to return him to Tunisian custody, the Pentagon said.

It offered no details on the security arrangements surrounding his return.

Al-Yazidi was sent to the wartime prison the day it opened on Jan. 11, 2002.



Italian Journalist Cecilia Sala Released from Iran and Returning Home

This photograph taken in Pordenone on September 16, 2023, shows Italian journalist Cecilia Sala posing for a photo at the Pordenonelegge Literature Festival in Pordenone. (ANSA/AFP)
This photograph taken in Pordenone on September 16, 2023, shows Italian journalist Cecilia Sala posing for a photo at the Pordenonelegge Literature Festival in Pordenone. (ANSA/AFP)
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Italian Journalist Cecilia Sala Released from Iran and Returning Home

This photograph taken in Pordenone on September 16, 2023, shows Italian journalist Cecilia Sala posing for a photo at the Pordenonelegge Literature Festival in Pordenone. (ANSA/AFP)
This photograph taken in Pordenone on September 16, 2023, shows Italian journalist Cecilia Sala posing for a photo at the Pordenonelegge Literature Festival in Pordenone. (ANSA/AFP)

An Italian journalist detained in Iran since Dec. 19 and whose fate became intertwined with that of an Iranian engineer wanted by the United States was freed Wednesday and is heading home, Italian officials announced.

A plane carrying Cecilia Sala took off from Tehran after “intensive work on diplomatic and intelligence channels,” Premier Giorgia Meloni’s office said, adding that Meloni had informed Sala's parents of the news.

There was no immediate word from the Iranian government on the journalist’s release.

Sala, a 29-year-old reporter for the Il Foglio daily, was detained in Tehran on Dec. 19, three days after she arrived on a journalist visa. She was accused of violating the laws of the country, the official IRNA news agency said.

Italian commentators had speculated that Iran was holding Sala as a bargaining chip to ensure the release of Mohammad Abedini, who was arrested at Milan’s Malpensa airport three days before on Dec. 16, on a US warrant.

The US Justice Department accused him and another Iranian of supplying the drone technology to Iran that was used in a January 2024 attack on a US outpost near the Syrian-Jordanian border that killed three American troops.

He remains in detention in Italy.