Six American citizens who were imprisoned in Kuwait have been released as part of efforts by the Trump administration to free Americans in overseas countries.
The group of Americans were freed on Wednesday and “deported” back to the US, and includes military contractors and veterans. They were held for years on drug-related charges in the country. The release follows a recent visit by US hostage envoy Adam Boehler to Kuwait.
Jonathan Franks, an advocate for the detainees, told Middle East Eye, “My clients and families are incredibly grateful for this extraordinary act of mercy by the Kuwaiti government.
“We’ve been engaged in a lengthy process to draw the US government’s attention to their cases.”
Franks accompanied the newly released prisoners on a flight from Kuwait to New York and said they did not wish to be named but wrote on X that they had been released as a “gesture of goodwill”.
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He said that all of the detainees had “vigorously maintained their innocence” of the charges made against them, and the longest-serving detainee had spent eight years in prison in Kuwait.
Franks added that another nine Americans were still in prison in Kuwait, and he was hopeful that more of them would be released in the coming weeks.
Last year, former army veteran and military contractor Jermaine Rogers spoke to News12 Connecticut about being wrongfully convicted of drug charges in Kuwait and being handed a death sentence. He spent eight years in prison before eventually receiving a pardon and being released.
A 2020 New York Times article about US prisoners held in Kuwait said that 28 Americans had done time in the country’s Central Prison Complex during the period from 2015 to 2020 on drug offences, and all of them were private contractors supporting American military operations in the Middle East. The article also said all of them maintained they had been convicted without due process under Kuwaiti law.
President Donald Trump focused on the release of Americans held in prisons overseas during his first term and has continued to make it a strategic part of his second term.
Kuwait and the USA have a close military partnership since the country was invaded by Iraq in 1990, and a US-led coalition staged a military intervention in 1991 and expelled Iraqi troops.
Following the Gulf War, the US expanded its military footprint in the region and developed large military bases in Kuwait. It also set the stage for the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. Tens of thousands of US troops assembled in Kuwait before the start of the invasion, with Kuwait serving as a bridgehead for the US military occupation of Iraq.
Neither the US State Department nor the embassy of Kuwait in DC responded to a request for comment.
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