A Muslim extremist who spent nearly three years imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay was acquitted Wednesday of all terrorism-related charges by a court in Kuwait.

Nasser al-Mutairi, who was released in January only to face trial at home, was acquitted of joining foreign military forces without permission, harming Kuwait by serving the interest of a "foreign country" and undergoing illegal weapons training.

The charges do not name any particular country or force.

"The lawyer always told me I am innocent, and I expected to be acquitted," said al-Mutairi, 27, who had been free on bail.

Eleven other Kuwaitis are still being held at Guantanamo Bay, along with hundreds of others from more than 40 countries. Al-Mutairi said the court's decision would be "good news" for them and they too deserved to be acquitted.

Al-Mutairi's lawyer, Mubarak al-Shimmiri, had previously argued that Kuwait lacked jurisdiction to try the Kuwaiti national.

"He was acquitted because nothing could be proven against him," al-Shimmiri, told The Associated Press. The case against al-Mutairi was drawn fully from U.S. investigations, he added.

Al-Shimmiri praised Kuwait's judiciary for not being influenced by the "political" side of the case.

When his trial began in April, Al-Mutairi said he went to Afghanistan for charity work in 2000, before the U.S.-led war began in that country.

None of the alleged crimes took place in Kuwait and they were not punishable in Afghanistan at the time they were allegedly committed, according to al-Shimmiri.

This small oil-rich state in the Gulf has been a major U.S. ally since the American-led 1991 Gulf War that liberated it from a seven-month Iraqi occupation.

But some Muslim fundamentalist Kuwaitis oppose the U.S. military presence in the country. Militants have attacked Americans in Kuwait several times since 2002, killing on U.S. Marine and a civilian contracted to the military.

Scores of young Kuwaitis have fought alongside Muslim militants in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chechnya and Iraq.

© 2005 Associated Press

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