20091211

NAIROBI (Reuters) - The family of a man held at the U.S. Guantanamo Bay prison camp on suspicion of carrying out militant attacks has sued the Kenya government for 2.25 billion shillings for wrongful detainment and torture.

In a petition to the High Court in Nairobi, Mohamed Abdulmalik's family said he was arrested on February 13, 2007 and held for longer than Kenyan law allows before he was handed over to the U.S. authorities.

"We submit that the above figure is commensurate compensation for the callous, unfeeling, inexcusable treatment that the Kenya police meted out against the subject," the petition said.

It went on to denounce his "long and unlawful detention without trial in what is now reputed to be the worst detention facility on earth".

Abdulmalik is held at Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. naval station in Cuba, for his alleged involvement in a 2002 attack of an Israeli-owned Kenyan beach hotel and an unsuccessful attempt to shoot down a plane headed for Israel from the resort of Mombasa.

The case, which has the Attorney General and Commissioner of Police listed as respondents, will be heard on January 14, 2010.

U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to close Guantanamo Bay -- set up afer the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and a focus of controversy because of torture and rights abuses -- and move suspected militants for trial on U.S. soil.