The US Department of Justice announced Oct. 9 that Kuwaiti Guantánamo Bay detainee Khaled al-Mutairi has been returned to his home country. The US government alleged that al-Mutairi had fought against American troops in Afghanistan, but in his almost eight years at the facility, no charges were ever filed. Al-Mutairi maintains that he had traveled to Afghanistan to provide monetary support for schools. In his home country, al-Mutairi will participate in a rehabilitation program set up by the Kuwaiti government, designed to help former Guantánamo detainees recover and reintegrate into civilian life. The DoJ also announced that a second detainee, whose identity has not been released, was released to Belgium. Al-Mutairi's release leaves 222 detainees who must be dealt with before the Obama administration's goal of closing the facility can be realized.

Al-Mutairi's release was ordered by federal judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the US District Court for the District of Columbia when she granted his petition for habeas corpus in July. Al-Mutairi was one of several Kuwaiti detainees remaining at Guantanamo. Most recently, Kollar-Kotelly ordered the release of Fouad al-Rabiah, another Kuwaiti man who had been held for seven years under suspicion of aiding the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Two weeks before that order, Kollar-Kotelly denied the petition of Kuwaiti detainee Fawzi Khalid Abdullah Fahad Al Odah, who admitted to traveling to Afghanistan to meet with the Taliban. (Jurist, Oct. 9)

See our last post on Gitmo and the torture scandal.

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