KUWAIT CITY - The United States will âsoonâ hand over five of the 11 Kuwaitis imprisoned at its camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the state news agency KUNA said on Sunday. âThe US administration will hand over five of the Kuwaiti detainees at Guantanamo camp to the Kuwaiti government soon,â Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington Shaikh Salem Abdullah Al Jaber Al Sabah was quoted as saying.Shaikh Salem, who did not provide a specific date for the repatriation, said the two countries were engaged in discussions over the âmechanismâ for handing over the inmates who have been held without trial, often for years.
The United States has agreed to release the five inmates following concerted efforts by Kuwaiti leaders, including Prime Minister Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, the ambassador said. After returning to Kuwait, the five detainees will be tried before a Kuwaiti court, he added, without saying on what charges.
The head of the society of families of Kuwaiti prisoners in Guantanamo, Khalid Al Ouda told AFP on Sunday that he expected the five to be repatriated before the end of October. âEverything is ready, the plane and the security team that would bring them back. We only need arrangements with two airports where the plane would land during the trip,â Ouda said, without elaborating.
According to Thomas Wilmer, the US lawyer defending the Kuwaitis, most of them were captured by bounty-hunters in 2001 near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and sold to the United States.
| They were just simple elk-hunters. |