WASHINGTON: The US Supreme Court refused yesterday to consider the case of a Yemeni detainee held at Guantanamo Bay despite a lower court order for his release.

Without giving an explanation, the Supreme Court said it would not take up the case of Yasin Muhammed Basardh, who was ruled innocent of terrorism charges by a US court some six months ago but remains incarcerated at Guantanamo.

Basardh’s lawyers sought to attach his case to that of a group of seven Chinese ethnic Uighur prisoners at Guantanamo, who are asking the court to order their release into the United States.

The highest US court agreed just over two weeks ago to take up the case of the Uighurs, who were declared innocent years ago but remain at Guantanamo in part because they face persecution if returned to China.

Basardh’s lawyers argue their client faces a similar fear of abuse if he is returned to his native Yemen, and he has not found a third country willing to provide him with asylum.

Basardh’s case is currently before a US appeals court but that lower court has said it will not rule until the Supreme Court decides the Uighur case, which is not likely to happen before May or June 2010. The Supreme Court will hear argument in coming months on the case of the Uighur detainees, who have been held for more than eight years at the detention facility located on a US naval base.

A year ago, the men obtained a court order allowing them to be resettled in the United States, but that ruling was overturned on appeal and will now be considered by the Supreme Court.

The United States has managed to resettle four Uighurs formerly held at Guantanamo detainees in Bermuda, and another six in Palau, but seven more remain at Guantanamo among a group of around a dozen prisoners of various nationalities who cannot be repatriated for fear of persecution, but have not found a third country willing to provide them with asylum. There are still 215 detainees at Guantanamo, which President Barack Obama is seeking to close in coming months, though his administration has acknowledged it may not meet a self-imposed deadline of January 2010 for shutting the facility.

Meanwhile, an imam accused of lying to FBI agents investigating an alleged bomb plot against New York City by a suspected al-Qaida associate pleaded not guilty yesterday. “I have nothing to hide,” Ahmad Wais Afzali told reporters outside federal court in Brooklyn after his plea.