 The first of 12 Kuwaitis held at Guantanamo Bay has returned home "exhausted but happy" after more than three years' captivity, a Kuwait-based detainees' committee said on Sunday. Nasser al-Mutairi arrived in Kuwait city overnight on a jet sent by the Kuwaiti government, head of the Kuwaiti Family Committee Khalid al-Odah told Reuters. Mutairi was one of a dozen Kuwaiti men imprisoned at the U.S. military prison in Cuba during the 2001 U.S. war to oust al Qaeda and the Taliban from Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks. Designated as "enemy combatants" by the Pentagon, most of about 550 non-U.S. detainees at Guantanamo Bay base have been held without charge, legal representation or trial.
"This is one giant step in our efforts to obtain due process for the 11 prisoners left behind but it is only one step," Odah said in a statement. He said none of the 12 were wanted for anything in their homeland and have no criminal records. The statement said Mutairi, an Education Ministry employee, was also a missionary representing the apolitical Tableeghi sect of Islam when he travelled to Afghanistan in October 2000 to teach in the mosques and schools. There he was captured by bounty hunters and sold to U.S. forces.
| Or so the tale has it. Wonder why the bounty hunters were on his tail? |
| He was just minding his own business, wasn't he? |
| An apolitical sect of Islam...is such a thing possible? |
|