By Del Quentin Wilber

The father of a Somali detainee at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has written a letter (PDF) to President Obama pleading for his son's release.

The detainee, Mohammed Sulaymon Barre, has been held at the facility since 2002 after being turned over by Pakistani authorities who arrested him for allegedly making illegal money transfers, according to the detainee's lawyers.

Barre, 44, was working for an international money transfer company in Pakistan at the time, his lawyers say.

"My son is innocent and should be helping our family on the farm and not in prison," wrote his father, Sulaymon Barre Ali, in a letter dated March 16. The father's plea was disclosed in a letter sent to Obama by Barre's attorneys this week.

Barre has refused to meet with is his attorneys since April, telling them in a hand-written note that "there is no justice to be hoped for from the government."

The detainee's attorneys say he fled Somalia in the 1990s and was granted refugee status in Pakistan. "Mr. Barre is a refugee, not a terrorist," wrote one of his attorneys, Bill Quigley, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Barre's lawyers want their client sent to Somaliland, a northern region of Somalia where his family lives. The attorneys say it is one of the few stable parts of the region.

Barre is seeking his release in a federal lawsuit filed against the government under the centuries-old legal doctrine of habeas corpus, which allows prisoners to challenge their confinement before independent judges.

Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said "a judge is going to decide whether he is being lawfully detained or not, and it's the government's position that he is being lawfully detained."

A government task force is reviewing the case files of all 229 prisoners held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay to determine what to do with them, Boyd said.
In military documents, officials have alleged that Barre had ties to al-Qaeda and hired couriers who worked for the terror group.

Source: The Washington Post on Jun 26, 2009  

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