JEDDAH, 2 June — Saudi Arabia announced yesterday that it had tried, convicted and sentenced some suspects in the 1996 Alkhobar bombing that killed 19 US servicemen. It said the verdicts would be made public shortly. “It is known that a number of people have been arrested, except two or three who are the masterminds. The rest have been sentenced by an Islamic court,” Deputy Interior Minister Prince Ahmad told Al-Jazirah newspaper.
“The verdicts will be announced at the appropriate time,” the prince said, without identifying the number of convicts, their names or nationalities.
“Islamic court verdicts are spelt out in the court room, then are taken to the higher court and later to the Supreme Judicial Council. Eventually, the verdicts are referred to the king for approval,” Prince Ahmad explained.
On June 25, 1996, 19 members of the US Air Force were killed when a bomb placed in a lorry blew up outside a residential complex in Alkhobar inhabited by US troops from the Dhahran air base. About 400 people were wounded.
Last June, Interior Minister Prince Naif said Saudi Arabian investigators had caught most of the suspects in the 1996 bombing and would soon put them on trial. “Only three suspects, two of them Saudis and the other a Lebanese, have not been arrested. The other accused are being held in the Kingdom,” Prince Naif told Al-Riyadh newspaper.
Prince Naif confirmed suspected links between Saudi dissident Hani Al-Sayegh and the bombing. The dissident was extradited from the United States for suspected links to the bombing. Asked if other Saudi nationals were detained in connection with Alkhobar bombing, he said: “Yes...their number is not big and could be counted on the fingers,” he added. He said people of other nationalities had not been detained.
Prince Naif strongly refuted as “a lie” the allegation that his ministry was not capable of ensuring security in the Kingdom. “We have tracked down the culprits behind every crime that took place in the country... and punished them,” he told Okaz daily. The Kingdom announced last year that three British nationals had been behind the bombings at the Euromarche department store and the Jarir Bookstore in Riyadh and another blast in Alkhobar.
