After Guantanamo, Nazir is discovering what it means to be free
Nazir Lep walked off a military plane at a Malaysian airbase on Dec 17, 2024, hooded and shackled, after a three-day journey with layovers.
Source: Free Malaysia Today · August 31, 2026 at 1:24 AM · AI-assisted report
Single-source
KAMPUNG JERAM MASJID, MUAR, JOHOR; GUANTANAMO BAY; THAILAND; MUAR, JOHOR; BUKIT PASIR, 31 AUGUST 2026 —
Nazir Lep walked off a military plane at a Malaysian airbase on Dec 17, 2024, hooded and shackled, after a three-day journey with layovers.
Market Impact
The 50-year-old said the move from Guantanamo Bay to his village in Kampung Jeram Masjid near Muar felt like trading one prison for another. “I just walked out of a prison into a bigger prison,” he told FMT. “Freedom carries its own burdens—responsibility, fear, and the need to start over.”
Nazir and Farik Amin, both Malaysians, pleaded guilty in 2024 to conspiring with Indonesian militant Encep Nurjaman, known as Hambali, over alleged ties to the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people. Both men were detained by the CIA in Thailand in 2003 and transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.
After nearly two decades behind bars, Nazir said the sensory deprivation of detention had erased his sense of ordinary life. “Not seeing crowds or vehicles for 20 years—eventually you get used to it,” he said. He described psychological torment from isolation and physical abuse during interrogations, including being suspended by his wrists for months while given only water.
Contact with his family was nearly severed. He first spoke to them via screened Skype calls around 2017, long after his mother died in 2018. “They thought I was dead,” he said. He learned of her passing through a telegram two weeks after she died.
Art became his lifeline. In 2022, he painted a man behind bars watching a sunset, titled “Guantanamo,” capturing his waning hope. He produced more than ten works in detention using paper and art supplies supplied by his lawyers.
His release came suddenly. In December 2024, the Guantanamo camp commander told him he would be flown out without revealing his destination. After a three-day trip with layovers and shackled the entire way, he landed and saw Malaysian military personnel on the tarmac.
Days later, he married on Sept 14 last year and now raises cattle and goats for sale, especially during Aidiladha, to cover living expenses. His brother Najib, a former Bukit Pasir assemblyman, built him a home named Teratak Pak Jay—after Nazir’s childhood nickname Pak Jay—to help him restart life in Muar.
Nazir said he is learning to live as a free man while facing lingering suspicion in his village. “I’m trying to earn a living like any other villager,” he said. “Alhamdulillah, my family has been very supportive.”
For Malaysia, Nazir’s release highlights the lingering effects of foreign detention programmes and the challenges faced by former detainees re-entering society.
Related: Nazir Lep