One year ago, a 25-year-old translator working for the US Air Force at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, was charged with crimes that could have brought him a death sentence. Ahmad al Halabi was accused of being part of an undercover spy ring passing secret information to Syria with the intent of damaging US efforts to fight the war on terror.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon dropped virtually all the charges against Mr Halabi, who was imprisoned for nearly a year, admitting that he posed no danger to the country and had done nothing worse than disobey orders by taking two unauthorised photographs of Camp Delta and accidentally carrying a copy of his classified orders to his living quarters on the base.