JEDDAH, 26 October — Contrary to media reports, not a single Saudi woman is presently in custody in the United States, according to an official of the Kingdom’s embassy in Washington. On Oct. 17, an Arab who was released from a New York jail claimed that several Arab women, who were arrested over past few weeks and whose names have not been disclosed by the FBI, were remanded in jail.
Several male Saudis are nevertheless being held by the US authorities on issues related to visa irregularities, said Mahmood Al-Qattan, deputy director of public relations.
Eleven of a total of 29 Saudis arrested by the US police have been set free and the others are expected to be released shortly, Okaz daily quoted Al-Qattan as saying.
Al-Qattan added that the embassy was making every effort to counter the smear campaign by the US media against the Kingdom.
“We have been sending replies and clarifications for the unfounded allegations appearing in the media,” he said. An instance of the embassy’s efforts was the New York Times publishing the statement of the Grand Mufti on Sunday. The mufti explained the correct Islamic version of jihad (holy struggle) which can only be called by a ruler as nobody else was authorized to make it.
Muddathir Siddiqui, the embassy’s attorney in Washington, said the misunderstandings about some Saudis in the wake of the recent terror attacks in the US have gradually been disappearing. None of them has any link with terrorist attacks.
“All the suspicions were just misunderstandings and baseless conjectures, the result of people’s phobia of everything Arab or Muslim,” the attorney said.
Three of the accused have been released on bail while the judge has agreed to release the remaining four shortly, he said.
“The case of Khaled Al-Diraibi who was arrested in Houston, will be heard on Dec. 4. We are currently trying to arrange the hearing on a nearer date as the only problem with him is that he made some errors while filling up the forms,” he said.
The hearing on another Saudi, Muhammad Al-Ghamdi, who is in a Virginia jail, is underway, he added. He was arrested while accompanying his sister, who was sent back to the Kingdom two weeks ago.
In another development, a federal judge in Kansas City on Tuesday denied bond for a Saudi charged with bank fraud. Adel Badri, 26, was deemed a flight risk by US Federal Magistrate Robert Larson in a hearing Tuesday and was ordered to be held in federal custody pending further hearings. Authorities allege he deposited three fraudulent checks in a Warrenburg, Missouri, bank that totaled a little more than $10,000 and then immediately drained the funds to purchase airline tickets and other items.
Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that they had no evidence Badri might be dangerous and they have not officially linked him to any of the individuals involved in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.
