JEDDAH, 8 March — Saudi security authorities have not arrested any suspects linked to the Al-Qaeda organization of Osama Bin Laden during this Haj season, according to Interior Minister Prince Naif.
Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, a sister publication of Arab News, he denied a report carried by the Associated Press that Saudi authorities had held a number of persons linked to Al-Qaeda, who tried to sneak into the Kingdom holding fake passports under the cover of Haj.
The American news agency also reported that the Al-Qaeda suspects were arrested on arrival at King Abdul Aziz Airport in Jeddah, the major gateway of pilgrims.
“There is no truth in this report. Saudi Arabia uses all its resources to help pilgrims perform their religious duties in peace and security. We are not concerned with the nationality of the pilgrim ,” the prince said.
“Our duty is to provide them with all facilities to perform their compulsory religious duty in the right manner. The pilgrims, naturally, return to their respective countries after completing their Haj rituals,” he explained.
The news agency also reported that the arrested included Arab and Pakistani nationals.
More than two million pilgrims from 170 countries performed Haj this year. Prince Naif, who is also chairman of the Supreme Haj Committee, declared that this year’s Haj operation was successful by all standards.
However, the interior minister pointed out that there were several cases of pilgrims arriving with forged Haj visas. He pointed out that a number of them had been allowed to perform Haj. “We will inform the authorities in their countries about the forgeries,” he added.
“We have found cases of forgery among some pilgrims. We received them considering their situation as they were very old and we did not want to prevent them from doing Haj. So we allowed them. Naturally, they will return to their respective countries,” he said.
Previous reports said the Kingdom had deported 81 Egyptians who attempted to enter the country with forged Haj visas. Immigration officials at Jeddah and Madinah airports detected the fake visas allegedly issued by the Saudi Embassy in Berlin.
It appears that the majority of the forged visas originated from an establishment based in the Cairo district of Ain Shams, which sold the visas for up to 11,000 Egyptian pounds ($2,400) each. Egyptian authorities have vowed to take action against the travel agents involved in the issuance of some 7,000 forged Haj visas.
