Yemeni man seeks Guantanamo release after 16 years

WASHINGTON (AP) - Lawyers for a longtime Guantanamo Bay detainee asked a federal appeals court Tuesday to intervene after the Trump administration disregarded a review board's decision clearing the man for release.

Moath al-Alwi has been held in Guantanamo for more than 16 years without charges. The Yemeni native was captured in Pakistan and originally believed to have been a bodyguard for Osama Bin Laden. Authorities later concluded he was a low-level cadre and may not have engaged in combat.

A ruling ordering al-Alwi's release by the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington could set a precedent for how the cases of some of the remaining 41 men held in Guantanamo Bay are handled. Al-Alwi's lawyer, Ramzi Kassem, said four other detainees have also been cleared for release by the Periodic Review Board but have languished in Guantanamo under the Trump administration.

The PRB system was set up by President Barack Obama's administration in 2011; the executive branch is not compelled to follow the board's recommendations, but Kassem said the Obama administration followed "most" of the board's decisions on releasing detainees.

Government attorneys told the court that al-Alwi remains a threat because of what it describes as his extremist ideology, making him a likely target for recruitment into another Islamic militant group if he was released.