JEDDAH, 26 February 2003 — Saudi Arabia has arrested seven more men for suspected links with Saudi-born Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, Interior Minister Prince Naif announced yesterday.
“The arrests were made a few days ago in Makkah and the seven are suspected of belonging to this group,” he told Al-Watan Arabic newspaper.
The men — mostly young Saudis, some of whom are still in secondary school — are being interrogated to determine if they had links with Al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organization.
“We will know within a few days,” the minister said, adding that security officers had also confiscated arms from the suspects.
The Ministry of Interior has also announced an SR500,000 reward for information leading to the capture of the gunman who shot Jouf Deputy Governor Dr. Hamad Al-Wardi in Jouf on Feb. 17.
Prince Naif dismissed the idea that there are “sleeping terrorist cells” in the Kingdom. “One or two people are arrested here and there but we don’t have what is known as sleeping cells,” he clarified.
He added that most of the arrested Al-Qaeda suspects in the Kingdom had previously visited Afghanistan.
Last week, Prince Naif said the Kingdom was holding 90 people with proven links to Al-Qaeda, adding that all of them had been handed over to the court. He estimated the total number of detainees at 253.
Assistant Interior Minister for Security Affairs Prince Mohammed ibn Naif said on Feb. 5 that some of the 90 had been sentenced to jail, and a number of them had completed their jail terms and been freed.
In a related development, the Saudi Ambassador to Morocco, Abdul Aziz Khoja, said the Kingdom was planning to ask for the extradition of the three Saudi Al-Qaeda suspects convicted in Morocco of plotting attacks on Western targets.
“We will submit an official request to the Moroccan authorities to extradite the Saudi citizens on the basis of existing Arab security pacts,” he told Okaz newspaper.
On Friday, a Moroccan court sentenced the men to 10 years in prison for having plotted attacks against Western targets in the country and in the Straits of Gibraltar.
The ruling said the Saudi defendants - Hilal Jaber Al-Assiri, 32, Zuhair Hilal Mohamed Tabiti, 27 and Abdullah Misfer Al-Ghamidi, 23 - were guilty of “having formed a criminal gang”. The men were accused of being part of an Al-Qaeda cell, but the ruling did not mention the organization which is widely blamed for the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
Three Moroccan women, two of them married to two of the Saudi defendants, were sentenced to six months in jail. Three other Moroccans received sentences ranging from four months to one year. One Moroccan was acquitted.
Defense attorneys will file an appeal against the ruling on Tuesday, Khoja said. Prosecutors had asked for the death penalty for the Saudi defendants and the two Moroccan wives.
Meanwhile, the father of Ali ibn Saud ibn Nasser, the alleged killer of a British citizen in Riyadh on Thursday, has said his son does not belong to any organization.
“He’s not a member of any religious group,” he told Al-Watan.
He said that his son, aged 26, was very emotional, and that although his son was allegedly involved he condemned the shooting.
Ali was suspected of having links with Al-Qaeda. Saudi security sources said Nasser had recently traveled to Pakistan and named his youngest son Osama.
Ali, who belongs to the Al-Harithy tribe in Najran, killed Robert Dent, a British commercial officer at the BAE Systems, by shooting him at close range. Family sources said Ali’s parents had a nervous breakdown after hearing that their son may have been involved in the shooting incident.
Police arrested Ali, who was employed at Baashen Establishment in Riyadh, soon after the incident.
