Sudan said on Sunday it had extradited to Saudi Arabia an alleged al-Qaida member accused of firing a surface-to-air missile at a US aircraft at an American airbase in the Saudi kingdom.
The country’s interior ministry said in a statement that the Sudanese man was arrested and interrogated after it received an extradition request from Riyadh on May 18.
The extradition request alleged the suspect fired the missile at an aircraft near the US Prince Sultan air base in Saudi Arabia, and had managed to flee back to his home country, it said.
The man ”gave full confessions that were identical with those made by his accomplices who were arrested in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” it said.
Saudi authorities have been given the man’s identity, the ministry added, but it did not name him. It also failed to say when or where he was arrested. Saudi Arabia has not made public any arrests in the case.
Last month the vice chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Peter Pace, said a spent casing from a Russian SA-7 missile had been found near the Saudi air base, but did not confirm that it was used to target US aircraft.
The Los Angeles Times on Thursday said the man was a suspected leader in Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network.
A US government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, described the man to the daily as ”someone important.”
”Was this guy Zubaydah? No,” the official said, referring to Abu Zubaydah, the third-ranking al-Qaida leader who was captured in Pakistan in March and has been held in an undisclosed location since then.
”But this is someone important? Obviously, anybody who’s looking to fire down a US aircraft, we want off the streets,” the official said.
The Times had said the Sudanese suspect was no longer believed to be in Sudanese custody but had not been handed over to US authorities. The paper said the suspect appeared to be cooperating with investigators by disclosing details about his firing the missile.
The Sudanese ministry said the extradition was made in accordance with an Arab judicial cooperation agreement and a bilateral agreement on the extradition of suspects and criminals.
”In view of the gravity of the act attributed to the suspects, jeopardising the security and stability in both countries, several meetings were held by officials of the two interior ministries and it was agreed that all persons involved in the incident be tried in Saudi Arabia where the incident took place,” its statement said.
The Pentagon announced on May 31 that US forces in Afghanistan had found 30 surface-to-air HN-5 missiles (the Chinese version of the SA-7) in an arms cache in the southeastern part of the country.
The shoulder-fired weapons are comparable to the US Stinger missiles that the Central Intelligence Agency supplied to Afghan rebels in their battle against Soviet forces. – AFP
