RIYADH: Yemen has handed over 29 Saudis wanted for suspected links to Al Qaeda, the interior ministry announced yesterday.
“As part of joint efforts between security services in the two countries, the kingdom has received 29 Saudis... (who) had joined Al Qaeda in Yemen,” interior ministry spokesman General Mansur Al Turki said.
Eleven of them had already been jailed and later released from prison in Saudi Arabia, Yemen’s oil-rich neighbour, he said.
Nine others were on trial in the kingdom when they fled, said Turki.
The defence ministry in Sana’a announced the handover this week without giving details.
Saudi authorities are hunting for dozens of the kingdom’s citizens who have joined Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), based in Yemen. Former prisoners at the US Guantanamo prison who had been returned to Saudi Arabia for rehabilitation in December 2006 later escaped to Yemen, two years ago after completing a reform programme. Saudi and Yemeni Al Qaeda branches merged in 2009 to form AQAP.
AFP
