MIAMI (AP) — A lawyer for one of the last two prisoners from Kuwait held at Guantanamo Bay told a government review panel Wednesday that his client will be closely monitored if returned to his homeland.
Kuwaiti authorities have agreed to keep Fawzi al-Odah in a government rehabilitation center for at least a year upon his release from the U.S. base in Cuba, according to his attorney Eric Lewis.
Al-Odah would surrender his passport, check in weekly with police after leaving the rehabilitation center and would be monitored by security authorities in the country, Lewis said in a statement to the Periodic Review Board.
The lawyer, appearing with his client at Guantanamo, addressed the members of the Periodic Review Board in Washington by video link. His statement was published on a Pentagon website.
Al-Odah has been held at the U.S. base in Cuba on suspicion of involvement with terrorism since February 2002. He has not been charged. His lawyer said the 37-year-old poses no threat to the U.S. and would seek to start a family and work in his father’s plumbing supply business if allowed to return to his homeland.
At one point, the U.S. held a dozen prisoners from Kuwait at Guantanamo. The military said that a Kuwaiti who was released in 2005 carried out a suicide bomb attack in Iraq in April 2008.
The Periodic Review Board is reviewing the cases of dozens of prisoners who authorities previously determined could not be charged but were too dangerous for release or transfer. The U.S. holds 149 men at Guantanamo.
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