RIYADH: A Saudi court has sentenced to death five people over deadly 2003 attacks that marked the start of a wave of Al Qaeda violence, media reported yesterday.
Dozens of Saudis and expats were killed and wounded that year in car bombings that ripped through three residential compounds in Riyadh where foreigners lived.
Sabq news website did not say when the five suspects were sentenced to death, but reported that they were found guilty of rigging car bombs used in the 2003 attacks. Thirty-seven other defendants were given jail terms ranging from three to 35 years, it said.The suspects were also convicted of plotting and carrying out an attack on a military base near Riyadh and of providing financial and logistical support to their now-slain leader Turki Al Dandani.
Dandani was a top Al Qaeda operative who was eventually killed in clashes with Saudi police.
Saudi authorities set up specialised terrorism courts in 2011 to try dozens of Saudis and foreigners accused of belonging to Al Qaeda or of involvement in the wave of unrest unleashed in 2003.
Bahrain sacks prisons chief
DUBAI: Bahrain’s interior minister, Sheikh Rashid bin Abdullah Al Khalifa, ordered yesterday the dismissal of the country’s prisons chief after two inmates escaped from a main jail, his office said.
Sheikh Rashid formed a committee to investigate the jailbreak from the Jau prison, in southeastern Bahrain, to assess shortfalls in security measures, the ministry said. He ordered the demotion of the official to the general security department, and appointed another officer as a caretaker under the ministry’s supervision.
The interior ministry did not disclose details about the prison escapees. Scores of Shias have been arrested, tried and jailed following a March 2011 crackdown on Shia-led protests that erupted in the Sunni-ruled Gulf kingdom.
Militant attacks kill 16 in Iraq
KUT, Iraq: Attacks in central Iraq, including two suicide car bombings aimed at checkpoints, killed 16 people yesterday, security and medical officials said.
The latest violence came as Iraq suffers a protracted surge in bloodshed that has killed more than 2,700 people so far this year.
In the deadliest attack, a suicide bomber detonated a vehicle rigged with explosives at a police checkpoint in the Suweirah area, south of Baghdad, killing 13 people and wounding 35, an officer and a medical source said.
Another suicide car bombing targeted a checkpoint in Madain, killing at least two people and wounding five, while gunmen shot dead one person and wounded at least one other in Latifiyah, officials said.
Video of sobbing hostage released
TRIPOLI: A militant group in Libya yesterday released a video showing a kidnapped Tunisian embassy staffer pleading with authorities in Tunis to negotiate with his captors.
The hostage, Mohamed ben Sheikh, is shown crying during the five-minute video as he calls on Tunisia’s president to help rescue him. He is being held by a largely unknown group calling itself Shabab Al Tawhid.
“Mr President, why do you want to deprive me of life?.. There are no negotiations, they will not release me,” he said.
“Mr President, negotiate with them. I want to return to Tunisia. They can kill me at any time.”
Agencies
