A Kuwaiti court Saturday upheld the acquittal of five returnees from Guantanomo on terror-related charges. In May, a criminal court had cleared the men of belonging to and collecting money for the al-Qaida terror network, but the prosecution appealed the ruling. U.S. officials freed the five men from the prison in Cuba in November. On their return to Kuwait, they were arrested and put on trial.All five - Abdullah Saleh al-Ajmi, Abdul-Aziz al-Shimmiri, Adel Zamel Abdul-Mohsen, Saad Madhi al-Azmi and Mohammed Fnaitil al-Dehani - had pleaded innocent when their trial opened in March. It takes a week to 10 days for the details of rulings to be made public. Lawyers defending the five argued that there was no evidence to convict their clients and that Kuwaiti courts did not have the jurisdiction to try them because they had not done anything illegal in Kuwait.
A Kuwaiti ex-Guantanamo prisoner who returned in January 2005 was initially acquitted of terror-related charges, but an appeals tribunal overturned the acquittal and sentenced him to five years in prison.