Lawyers seek order to release Kuwaiti at Guantanamo (Reuters)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) –
Lawyers for a Kuwaiti held at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Tuesday asked the judge who ordered him freed to force the Obama administration to release him.
Last month, a U.S. district judge ordered the release of Fouad Al Rabiah, a Kuwaiti Airways engineer, and harshly criticized the U.S. government for using coerced confessions to justify detaining him indefinitely.
He was accused of providing money to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden during a July 2001 trip to Afghanistan and helping Taliban fighters in the mountainous Tora Bora region in the country during a subsequent October trip.
His lawyers said it was a case of mistaken identity and that Al Rabiah was in Afghanistan in October coordinating deliveries of aid supplies from Iran to refugees.
He has been at Guantanamo almost eight years.
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly granted his release after finding that he had only received two weeks of military training, which was required in Kuwait, and that he had a record of charity work with no ties to terrorism.
His attorney asked the judge to hold Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Rear Admiral Tom Copeman, the commander at Guantanamo, in contempt of court for not complying with her ruling and that she order he be released within 15 days.
They said he should have been flown home when another detainee was sent to Kuwait from Guantanamo last week.
U.S. officials "have made clear that they will do nothing to comply with Al Rabiah's release order unless and until they are forced to do so by the court," defense lawyer David Cynamon said in a court filing.
A Justice Department spokesman had no immediate comment.
The department told him it was holding Al Rabiah until it decided whether to appeal the court's original ruling, according to correspondence Cynamon filed with the court. He argued the administration could not use that as a reason to continue to hold him.
(Reporting by Jeremy Pelofsky, editing by Doina Chiacu)
