CAIRO - Egypt has asked the United States to release an Egyptian imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay for more than a decade, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Tareq al-Sawah was wounded and captured in Afghanistan after fighting US-led forces in the Tota Bora battle, according to the website of US Department of Defence. He was accused of terrorism and being an explosives trainer in the militant Al-Qaeda network, before the charges were withdrawn last March. In a request delivered to the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, the Egyptian foreign ministry said it was “concerned with the release of its detained citizen” and demanded him freed.
The statement said Egypt has authorised an American lawyer to represent Sawah before a task force set up by President Barack Obama to review the status of detainees in the controversial prison in a US naval base in Cuba.