Two Tunisians once held by CIA repatriated from Afghanistan

The US military has repatriated two Tunisian men who were brutally interrogated in a secret CIA prison and held in Afghanistan for more than a decade, the Pentagon said Sunday. Ridha Ahmad al-Najjar and Lutfi al-Arabi al-Gharisi were flown home on June 15, officials said. Both men had been incarcerated by the Afghan regime since December, when the United States handed over control of prison operations in Afghanistan under a bilateral security treaty.
"The Defence Department transported two Tunisian males in Afghan custody to Tunisia in support of the government of Afghanistan," Pentagon spokesman said Lieutenant Colonel Myles Caggins said.
"These individuals remained under Afghan government control until they were handed over to Tunisian officials."
Najjar, whom the CIA suspected of having been Osama bin Laden's bodyguard, was captured in May 2002 in Karachi and became the first prisoner of the CIA's notorious "Salt Pit" prison in Afghanistan that has since closed.