Five Kuwaitis freed from Guantanamo
The Kuwaiti authorities have received five detainees who were freed after three years of detention in Guantanamo, the state news agency has said.
“The five detainees that Kuwaiti authorities received today are on their way to Kuwait on a flight,” the agency, KUNA, quoted the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States as saying on Thursday.
“They’re expected to be tried in a Kuwaiti court where they will receive a just sentence.”
The five detainees were among a dozen Kuwaiti men initially imprisoned at the US military prison during the 2001 US-led war to oust al-Qaida and the Taliban from Afghanistan after the 11 September attacks.
One former detainee Nasser al-Mutairi was freed last January, but was later tried and acquitted of charges of undermining Kuwaiti security, weapons possession, joining al-Qaida and fighting a friendly nation, a reference to the United States.
But on Wednesday, a Kuwaiti appeals court sentenced al-Mutairi to five years in prison for “participating in hostile activities against a friendly country”, “weapons and ammunitions training and possession” and “hurting Kuwait’s political position”.
Kuwait, a staunch US ally, is a main transit route for American forces going to Iraq.
It was a launch pad for the 2003 war on Iraq and up to 25,000 US soldiers are based there.