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Lawyer: Kuwaiti Emir Got Guantánamo Release

BY CAROL ROSENBERG
The Miami Herald
September 28, 2006

Two Kuwaiti detainees at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, went home this month following a personal entreaty from the emir of Kuwait to President Bush, an attorney said Thursday.
 
Sheik Sabah Al Ahmed Al Sabah, the newly installed ruler of the Persian Gulf oil nation, asked the U.S. president for return of all six of his nationals just after Labor Day during an official visit to Washington, said attorney David Cynamon.
 
Nine days later, Sept. 14, the Pentagon announced release of two of the men -- Omar Rajab Amin, 31, and Abdullah Kamel al Kundari, 32, both fathers who had been held at the remote U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba since soon after their capture in Afghanistan in early 2002.
 
In a telephone conference call with reporters, Cynamon credited ''discussions between the emir of Kuwait and President Bush that took place after Labor Day in Washington'' for the pair's release.
 
''Diplomatic efforts continue'' between the two nations, he said, adding that it was ``distressing that the administration is dragging its feet so long.''
 
Cynamon, who represents the remaining four Kuwaitis among the 545 captives at Guantánamo, also said he had recently met with those still there -- but could not describe the circumstances of their confinement because his attorney-client notes are being reviewed by security censors.
 
In doing so, he declined to answer a direct question on whether his clients had come in contact with the 14 so-called ''high-value detainees'' whom President Bush recently ordered moved from secret CIA holding centers to the U.S. military-run detention center.
 
Kuwait, a small oil-rich state east of Iraq, has been a major ally of Washington since the United States under President Bush's father, George H.W. Bush, led the 1991 Gulf War that freed it from seven months of Iraqi occupation.
 
The current Bush administration has for the most part negotiated repatriation of Guantánamo captives to friendly Western ally nations.
 
Sheik Sabah, the former prime minister, became Kuwait's ruler in January. Cynamon said the sheik had sought the transfer to their homeland of all the Kuwaitis held in Guantánamo since early 2002, among them a father of five whose release is still sought.
 
A U.S. military-style parole panel had cleared the two men who went home under a Pentagon process that still categorizes them as ''enemy combatants'' captured on the battlefield -- but has U.S. officers weigh whether they are likely to take up arms against the United States or its allies, if released.
 
Kuwaiti captives at Guantánamo have consistently claimed they were not combatants at all but humanitarian workers in Afghanistan at the time of the U.S. invasion to topple the Taliban and route al Qaeda.
 
Cynamon, who is handling the Kuwaitis' habeas corpus petitions, noted in his conference call to reporters that he met his clients even as Congress considers legislation that would largely strip Guantánamo captives of their recourse to have U.S. lawyers and challenge their indefinite detention in federal courts.

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