Guantanamo Parole Board Clears 'Forever Prisoner' for Transfer

Whether he'll actually be returned to Yemen is another question entirely

President Barack Obama's Guantánamo parole board has approved for transfer the first so-called "forever prisoner" to undergo a review of his case file, the Pentagon said Thursday.

Mahmud Mujahid, 34, brought to Guantánamo as a suspected bodyguard of Osama bin Laden on Jan. 11, 2002, joins 76 other detainees who are technically approved for release among the 155 captives at the prison camps. Unclear is whether or when he will ever go home to his native Yemen.

A Pentagon announcement said a "consensus" of a six-member Periodic Review Board representing U.S. intelligence and other agencies "found that continued law of war detention is no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the United States."