The White House’s decision to release 3 Guantanamo detainees who have been held for nearly 20 years has sparked speculation about the possibility that President Joe Biden will close this notorious US military prison.

On May 17, a White House committee agreed to release 3 detainees, including Saifullah Paracha, 73-year-old Pakistani, who was the oldest of the detainees.

They were arrested and transferred to prison between 2001 and 2003, and unlike most of the other detainees, no charges have been brought against them.

The Guantanamo Bay prison was opened in 2002 at the American base in Cuba, to detain members of Al-Qaeda and presumed accomplices of the perpetrators of the September 11, 2001 attack, and the prison became a weakness for Washington, as it was accused of detaining and torturing innocent people.

The detainee included about 800 "prisoners of war", most of them were arrested despite the weak evidence of their involvement, and many of them were tortured in secret locations of the CIA before they were transferred.

Presidential commitment

Joe Biden was Vice President Barack Obama when he ordered the latter to close Guantanamo in January 2009 and try prisoners before civilian courts, but the decision - which was unpopular - hung in Congress.

During his two terms as president, Barack Obama preferred to release hundreds of detainees whom the Presidential Review Committee agreed to release, and the releases were stopped under Donald Trump.

As the United States prepares to withdraw from Afghanistan on the twentieth anniversary of the attacks, it is still holding 40 detainees at its base in Cuba.

White House spokeswoman Gene Saki confirmed in April that the president "remains committed" to closing Guantanamo.

For his part, Shelby Salivan Bennis, Saifullah Paracha's lawyer, affirmed his "confidence that the Biden administration will evacuate Guantanamo, as much as possible."

Real credibility

Human rights organizations are calling for real action for Joe Biden, and Daphne Eviatar of Amnesty International says, "He cannot have any real credibility when he calls on other countries to respect human rights without prioritizing closing Guantanamo."

Of the 40 men still held, 9 have already been informed of their imminent exit.

Twelve others - including Khaled Sheikh Muhammad, who is believed to be the mastermind of the September 11 attacks - are awaiting trial before a military commission that has issued only two judgments within two decades, while the other 19 are facing a judicial impasse, and they are being held without charge and have not been acquitted by the Presidency’s review committee.

Shayana Kadial of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is defending a number of detainees, believes that Biden will avoid the political error of a public declaration, and he can - like Obama - allow the commission to do so.

This lawyer welcomes the committee's "change of position" through its recent decisions, noting that it is now ready to listen to the most difficult cases, stressing that these detainees suffer from psychological disorders and have been subjected to torture by the CIA.

But there are other obstacles, such as the appointment of a US envoy to negotiate the return of detainees to their countries, a position that Trump has abolished.

The other challenge is the fate of the 12 prisoners who are still in the military judiciary, including 6 - one of whom is Khalid Sheikh Muhammad - who may be sentenced to death.

A political risk

Cases of these detainees progress slowly due to procedural issues and changes in judges or lawyers.

Kadial says that the possibility of trying them in civilian courts still poses a political risk for Biden, as these trials may reveal torture and human rights violations to which prisoners were subjected, and could prompt judges and juries to sympathize with them.

He added that the idea put forward in the US Department of Defense (the Pentagon) is related to the possibility of using Guantanamo in future conflicts.

Lawyers for the detainees, for their part, fear maximum penalties that may be issued by these civil courts.

"They have better (detention) conditions than those in a high-security prison, and they could die of natural causes" at Guantanamo, said Cadial.

He added that "being in Guantanamo without trial is - to some extent - better than what they could live elsewhere."