Kuwait has released a group of American prisoners, including veterans and military contractors jailed for years on drug-related charges, in a move seen as a gesture of goodwill between two allies, a representative for the detainees told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
The release follows a recent visit to the region by Adam Boehler, the Trump administration’s top hostage envoy, and comes amid a continued US government push to bring home American citizens jailed in foreign countries.
Six of the newly freed prisoners were accompanied on a flight from Kuwait to New York by Jonathan Franks, a private consultant who works on cases involving American hostages and detainees and who had been in the country to help secure their release.
“My clients and their families are grateful to the Kuwaiti government for this kind humanitarian gesture,” Franks said in a statement.
He said that his clients maintain their innocence and that additional Americans he represents also are expected to be released by Kuwait later.
The State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The names of the released prisoners were not immediately made public.
Kuwait, a small, oil-rich nation that borders Iraq and Saudi Arabia and is near Iran, is considered a major non-NATO ally of the United States.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio paid tribute to that relationship as recently as last month, when he said the US “remains steadfast in its support for Kuwait’s sovereignty and the well-being of its people.”
The countries have had a close military partnership since America launched the 1991 Gulf War to expel Iraqi troops after Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein invaded the country, with some 13,500 American troops stationed in Kuwait at Camp Arifjan and Ali al-Salem Air Base.
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