As a result of being tortured, a detainee at Guantanamo Bay was transferred to a mental institution in Saudi Arabia

After his mental health seriously ill as a result of the torture he was subjected to, Muhammad Al-Qahtani, who has been detained in Guantanamo Bay for nearly two decades, will be transferred to a mental hospital in Saudi Arabia. Al-Qahtani suffers from severe mental disorder and symptoms of schizophrenia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

CNN said that the Saudi detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Muhammad al-Qahtani, will be transferred to a psychiatric clinic in Saudi Arabia, after his mental health seriously ill.

Al-Qahtani is still languishing in the famous prison despite the charges against him being dropped in 2008, after he was arrested nearly two decades ago.

US authorities allege that al-Qahtani was one of the al-Qaeda operatives who planned to be the "20th hijacker" in the September 11, 2001 attacks, but failed to board United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in rural Pennsylvania.

The American network reported that Al-Qahtani's lawyers said that he suffers from a severe mental disorder, and that he has symptoms of schizophrenia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of the "torture" he is being subjected to in Guantanamo.

She pointed out that the two lawyers fought protracted legal battles to return Al-Qahtani to the Kingdom, before the "Periodic Review Board" recommended that Al-Qahtani be returned to a psychiatric clinic in his country.

The council said in a file posted on its website that it "recognizes that the detainee poses a certain level of threat in light of his past activities and associations," but the council believes that "the continued law-of-war detention of the detainee is no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States."

And he added, "The Council understands that Saudi Arabia can provide (Al-Qahtani) comprehensive mental health care, and that the Kingdom is able to monitor the detainee after completing his rehabilitation program."

The Periodic Review Board recommended specific conditions for al-Qahtani's return, such as a "comprehensive set of security measures including monitoring and travel restrictions."

The aforementioned council is a government entity established during the Obama administration to determine whether detainees in the facility are guilty .

In a statement, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the notorious Guantanamo prison, they called for the remaining detainees to be repatriated or sent to safe third countries, and to compensate them for any "acts of torture" they were subjected to.

The Pegasus spy program a diplomatic weapon invented by Israel, so it turned on it

The Hebrew economic newspaper Calcalist revealed that the use of the Pegasus spyware program was not limited to abroad, but was used by the Israeli police without obtaining judicial permission inside Israel.

In recent years, Israel has used the Pegasus electronic espionage program as a diplomatic weapon, but this powerful weapon began to backfire with a series of reports accusing the Israeli police of using it to spy on a number of political figures in Tel Aviv itself.

An investigation published by 17 international media outlets last summer revealed a scandal that the Pegasus program developed by the Israeli company NSO allowed spying on at least 180 journalists, 600 political figures, 85 human rights activists and 65 company owners in several countries.

Exporting this program requires approval by the Military Export Controls Agency, which allows this technology to be sold to foreign governments, not companies or individuals.

Once downloaded to a mobile phone, the program allows you to hack the phone and see messages, data, photos and contacts, and it also allows you to activate the microphone and the camera remotely.

In recent years, Israel has sold this technology in particular to Morocco, the country with which it has just normalized its relations, and to Saudi Arabia, with which it hopes to establish formal diplomatic relations. Amnesty International has documented that the Pegasus program was used to prosecute one of its members, and another person who defends human rights in Saudi Arabia, according to Agence France-Presse.

For more, read:

“ An earthquake” .. the Israeli police spying on the phones of senior officials and those close to Netanyahu

The Israeli company insists that its software is only for use in the fight against terrorism and other crimes, but it can do nothing if its use is altered by certain governments.

In mid-January, the Hebrew economic newspaper Calcalist revealed that the use of the Pegasus spyware program was not limited to abroad, but was used by the Israeli police without obtaining judicial permission inside Israel.

"With the doubling of Pegasus' sales abroad, there was a process of normalizing its use internally," lawyer Itay Mack told AFP.

Itai is working with others to sue NSO, on behalf of Hungarian journalists who have been illegally spied on.

And on Monday, Calcalist newspaper caused an uproar again, when it reported that the police had used the Pegasus program to illegally spy on the phones of dozens of prominent figures in the country, including those close to former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his son Avner.

"After reading Calcalist, we started to believe that this country may not be democratic," wrote journalist Sima Kadmon in Israel's most popular newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth.

"If the state really works in this way, we are really like Romania in the era of Ceausescu or Chile Pinochet," she added.

Hearing the witnesses

On Monday, Minister of Internal Security Omer Bar-Lev called on the Ministry of Justice to form a government investigation committee into the matter.

On Tuesday evening, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett requested the opening of a preliminary investigation into the 26 figures referred to by Calcalist newspaper, according to a statement issued by the Presidency of the Government.

Bennett confirmed that a more comprehensive investigation would be launched in the coming days.

For his part, Netanyahu called for the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry.

According to press reports, Pegasus was exported and used without a court order while Netanyahu was in power. Information indicates that Avner Netanyahu and key defendants in "Case 4000", also called the Bezeq file, were spied on through the program.

In this case, Netanyahu faces charges of corruption, breach of trust and embezzlement, and of providing benefits to media moguls in exchange for positive coverage of him.

Among these media outlets is the Walla website, which is owned by the Bezeq communications group. But Netanyahu pleads his innocence, accusing the judiciary of orchestrating a "coup" against him.

Calcalist spoke last week of using the program to spy on a key witness in Netanyahu's trial and against activists who led protests calling for the former prime minister's departure.

According to the Israeli press, the smartphones of former general directors of the Ministry of Communications, witnesses to the attorney general, leaders and chiefs in the framework of this case, as well as journalists from the Walla website, were hacked.

She wore it

A commission of inquiry could eventually expose all police practices, possibly implicating Netanyahu himself because he was in power during the alleged spying operations, but the investigation could hamper Netanyahu's corruption trial by calling into question the legality of the evidence obtained against him.

Netanyahu's trial, scheduled for Tuesday, was canceled and prosecutors were instructed to answer questions from the former prime minister's lawyer about the use of espionage in his case.

"It's an astonishing turnaround for a man who is said to have used the Pegasus spyware as a diplomatic tool, and it has turned back on him," says lawyer Itay Mack.

"I think it's very embarrassing that Netanyahu is the only leader in power who has also used the system against him," he adds.

"Israeli democracy is going through a pivotal moment, and confidence in it is at stake," said Johanan Plesner, director of the Israel Democratic Institute (a think tank in Jerusalem), calling for the formation of a commission of inquiry into the use of surveillance technology.

He urges politicians to do so, and to update laws to protect public life.