Al-Tharhi hopes Al-Moayad and his aid Zayed will be released as soon as possible particularly after terrorism convictions against the two were reversed by a US appeal court in October 2008.

Offering assistance to the Palestinian movement of Hamas is not a crime, he said.

We expect Obama to be good as he, from the first day of his work as US president, issued an order to suspend the trials of Guantanamo detainees, al-Tharhi said.

In his inaugural address, Obama promised the US will turn over a new leaf in its relations with the Muslim World. 

Al-Tharhi urged the US authorities to transfer al-Moayad, 60, to a good hospital as his health condition is deteriorating.

Sheikh Muhammad Al-Moayad and his companion Muhammad Zayed were arrested in 2003 in Germany and extradited to the US.

In 2005, the two were convicted by a US court of charges related to terrorist finance and sentenced to 75 and 45 years in jail respectively.

However, a federal appeals panel in New York in October 2008 overturned their convictions in a prominent terrorism case once hailed by the Bush administration as a significant blow to Al Qaeda.

This was based on that sheikh Al-Moayad and his assistant had been deprived of a fair trial because of errors by the presiding judge,