Barhoumi was initially charged on November 7, 2005, but those charges were thrown out in June 2006 when the US Supreme Court ruled that the military commissions were unlawful. In September 2006, Congress passed the Military Commissions Act, authorizing a new set of military commissions. The government announced new charges against Barhoumi on May 29, 2008. However, on October 21, 2008, it withdrew the charges against Barhoumi and four others, saying it would probably refile new charges in the future. The announcement came in the wake of the resignation of Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, one of the prosecutors on the case, who said that the military commissions did not have a proper system in place to provide exculpatory evidence to the defense. In January 2009 the government re-filed charges, which were subsequently dismissed.
On March 28, 2016 Barhoumi appeared before a US government interagency review board where he made a case for release. His presentation to the board included a letter of support for his release from a former guard, and his military defense attorney said that Barhoumi’s family already purchased space to open a pizza parlor in Algiers.
The review board cleared Barhoumi for release on August 9, 2016. However, he remains in detention after 16 years in Guantanamo. (Last updated August 9, 2018)
