Posted on 02/04/2003 3:37:08 PM PST by knighthawk
KUWAIT: Four Kuwaitis jailed for five years were convicted of fighting for Afghanistan's former Taliban rulers against US forces, their lawyer said on Tuesday.
"According to court documents they all fought in Afghanistan against the Americans after September 11," the attorney, Osama al-Munawir, said.
They were jailed on Monday on charges of joining the military of a foreign country and acting in manner that harms Kuwait, he said.
"These charges cannot be correct because one of them had been in Pakistan and Afghanistan in 2000 and returned home before the events of September 11," he said.
Munawir said he would appeal the rulings.
One of the men, Mohsen al-Fadli, had been accused of links to the attack on the US warship Cole in Yemen two years ago.
Fadli and the three others -- identified as Adel Yousef Bu Hemaid, Maqboul Fahad Fahhad al-Maqboul and Mohammed Jamaan Safaq al-Mutairi -- had pleaded not guilty in December at the start of their trial in the Gulf Arab state.
The lawyers said then that the suspects' confessions had been made under duress and that they denied being members of Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
Kuwait is a key US ally in the Gulf region and would likely be a base for any US-led ground attack on Iraq.
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