JEDDAH, 27 April — The authorities are continuing to receive inquiries from Saudi families seeking information about their relatives, who were either detained in the United States or elsewhere, as well as others who went missing following the Sept. 11 attacks.
A special office working round the clock to respond to inquiries and provide information to such families and relatives has been receiving calls at the rate of 120 a month, an official at the Ministry of Interior told Arab News.
Dr. Saud Al-Musaibeeh, director of the ministry’s liaison and guidance office, said that it was still not known exactly how many Saudis remain in US prisons, mainly because some of those who were released may have moved to other parts of the country only to be rearrested.
“It is difficult to determine the exact number of the detainees whose cases have been documented and verified. This is especially the case in a country like the United States, where each of the 50 states has an independent security and judicial system,” Dr. Al-Musaibeeh said.
“ Some of those detained in one state and later released may have moved to another state, for one reason or another, only to be arrested again. Many have been detained for violating the country’s traffic or immigration laws,” he added.
Parents are being apprised of the latest developments regarding their detained children and reassured about the concern and care felt by the government toward those citizens.
Dr. Al-Musaibeeh said Saudis in the US have been showing full solidarity with the families of the detainees sheltering them and providing them with other assistance while the Saudi Embassy processed the travel documents of the dependents to enable them to return home and assigned defense lawyers for the detainees.
Prince Naif, the interior minister who instructed the opening of the office in Riyadh to handle the cases, Prince Ahmad, the deputy minister of interior, and Prince Muhammad ibn Naif, assistant interior minister, personally follow up these efforts.
According to published reports, there were about 50 Saudi detainees in the US following the attacks. However, the official figure continued to go down, first to 27 and then 11.
Many of those released have since returned to the Kingdom. Hundreds of Saudi students have cut short their studies in the US and returned home. Before the Sept. 11 attacks, there were 5,500 students in US universities, including 3,500 on government sponsorships. Of the 19 hijackers, 15 were allegedly Saudi nationals.
