DUBAI, 8 November — A member of Bahrain’s royal family is among suspected members or sympathizers of the Al-Qaeda terror network detained at a US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, his father said yesterday in an Arabic newspaper. Sheikh Salman ibn Ibrahim Al-Khalifa is “accused of sympathizing with Al-Qaeda,” Sheikh Ibrahim ibn Muhammad Al-Khalifa told the London-based daily Asharq Al-Awsat.
He said Sheikh Salman had been detained in Pakistan “and handed over to the Americans for the sum of $20,000,” without explaining to whom the money was handed over.
His son moved to Saudi Arabia in 2000 for religious studies and then contacted the family three months later from Pakistan to say he was doing charity work, Sheikh Ibrahim said. “We have contacted the foreign and interior ministries in Bahrain and they have taken action in this case” to secure Sheikh Salman’s release, he said, adding that a total of six Bahrainis were currently being held in Guantanamo.
In May, a Bahraini security team met four Bahrainis detained at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, along with many other Arabs suspected of links to Al-Qaeda, the network blamed for last year’s Sept. 11 terror attacks.
A Foreign Ministry official said “the delegation found the detainees to be held in satisfactory conditions, and to be in good health and spirits”, and that contacts were underway to secure their return home “in the near future”.
