Ex-Guantanamo inmate joins Taliban negotiating team

A former Guantanamo Bay inmate, Mullah Muhammad Nabi Omari, recently appeared in the Taliban delegation scheduled to meet with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Fayez Al-Kandari claimed on Twitter that he had been imprisoned with Omari in Guantanamo and used to converse with him.

Omari, 52, was detained for nearly 12 years in the infamous Guantanamo detention camp in Cuba.

In 2014, he was transferred from Guantanamo Bay to Qatar along with another four inmates known as the Five Taliban Men, in a prisoner exchange deal that led to the release of US Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl. In a deal that was mediated by the Gulf state.

Russia’s Sputnik news agency quoted a Qatari source as saying that the Taliban delegation scheduled to meet Pompeo will be headed by Mullah Baradar Akhund, the movement’s political deputy and chief negotiator, and include Muhammad Abbas Stankzai, the movement’s former chief negotiator.

READ: Trump tells Europe to ‘have fun’ catching Daesh citizens again