Kenyan suspect should be freed from ‘black hole’ Guantanamo, tried in Kenya, lawyer says

Lawyer: Free Kenyan from ‘black hole’ Guantanamo

NAIROBI, Kenya — A Kenyan man detained for three years without charge at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo should face trial in Kenya instead of being held indefinitely at the U.S. facility, his government-appointed attorney said.

Darin Thompson, an assistant federal public defender, called Guantanamo a “black hole” and said his client, Mohamed Abdulmalik, should be repatriated to face trial over his alleged role in a 2002 terror attack in Kenya targeting an Israeli-owned luxury hotel and jetliner.

The position is in line with that of Kenya’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which wrote to the U.S. government this month to ask that Abdulmalik be sent back to Kenya. That position by the government represented a change in policy. Previously Kenya tried to deny that Abdulmalik was even a Kenyan citizen.

The Pentagon has said that Abdulmalik acknowledged involvement in the November 2002 attack on the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel near Kenya’s coastal city of Mombasa, in which 13 people died, as well as an unsuccessful attempt to shoot down an Israeli airliner in 2002. U.S. officials have also claimed that Abdulmalik, 37, is a member of al-Qaida.

Still, no charges have been filed against him, his lawyer said in an April 12 letter to Kenya’s foreign minister.

“It is clear that if Mr. Abdulmalik is believed to have committed Kenyan crimes, he should face Kenyan justice in a Kenyan court,” Thompson wrote in a letter, which was given to The Associated Press by human rights activist al-Amin Kimathi.

“Instead, he has been taken from his homeland to a United States military base on the other side of the Earth, forced to petition in Washington, D.C. for his release from indefinite detention in the black hole that is Guantanamo Bay,” Thompson wrote.

Thompson said the U.S. government has not given any indication that it will charge Abdulmalik with a crime even though he has been in U.S. custody since 2007.

U.S. officials had no immediate comment Wednesday.

A spokesman for Kenya’s Foreign Ministry, Daniel Mokaya, said the ministry hasn’t received any response from the U.S. on its request to have Abdulmalik repatriated.

Thompson has filed a case in the United States District Court in Washington, D.C. seeking orders to have Abdulmalik released. He lauded the recent efforts by the Kenyan government to have Abdulmalik repatriated.

Kenya’s director of public prosecutions, Keriako Tobiko, declined to comment Wednesday on whether authorities would press charges against Abdulmalik if he is repatriated. Tobiko said it would be illegal to comment because of a lawsuit filed by Abdulmalik’s family against the Kenyan government. The family is seeking $30 million in damages for wrongful detainment and torture.

Abdulmalik’s family maintains he was held in Kenyan custody without charge longer than Kenyan law allows and was tortured by Kenyan officials. U.S. officials later took him from Kenya to Djibouti to Afghanistan and then to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the London-based human rights group Reprieve has said.

In his letter to Kenya’s foreign minister, Thompson said Abdulmalik does not fear Kenyan justice.

“He seeks it and has been crying out for it since 2007. We wholeheartedly support your efforts to return him to Kenya, trusting that it will be a return to the rule of law.” Thompson wrote in the letter.