Yemen: Issue of two al-Qaida convicts strains relations with US
Sana’a, June 10, 2008 (YemenOnline) - Yemen's constitution bars the country from handing over two al-Qaida suspects convicted here but wanted by the United States, the Yemeni foreign minister said Monday, commenting on an issue that he says has strained relations between the two nations. The minister, Abu-Bakr al-Qirbi, said the two suspects' case was "behind the crisis in Yemen-U.S. relations" but that he hopes it can be resolved through dialogue so that relations can "return to their normal course."
The two suspects are Jaber Elbaneh, a Yemeni-American convicted of planning attacks on oil installations in Yemen, and Jamal al-Badawi, the al-Qaida mastermind of the 2000 bombing of USS Cole bombing that killed 17 American sailors.
Al-Qirbi said he had canceled a recently planned visit to the U.S. because he didn't want it to focus on the al-Qaida suspects rather than other pressing issues, such as economy and development.
He denied U.S. accusations that Yemen has been lenient with the two after a court here commuted al-Badawi's death sentence to 15 years in prison. Al-Qirbi also added that Yemen has told the United States it was prepared to retry the suspects if Washington supplied evidence on them to Yemen.
"There is no country which endangers its own security situation by appeasing terrorism, " al-Qirbi said. "But there are certain factors that make some countries choose different means to fight terrorism because of those country's tribal and social structure."
Yemeni law bans extradition, al-Qirbi said.
Washington — which offered a reward of up to US$5 million for information leading to Elbaneh's arrest — was angered when Yemeni authorities allowed him to go free during an appeals process — even after he was convicted, jailed, escaped from prison and subsequently turned himself in.
Elbaneh is currently appealing his 10-year sentence here. He was convicted of plots to attack oil installations and of involvement in a 2002 attack on the French tanker Limburg off Yemen's coast that killed one person. He was sent to a maximum security prison in May, and briefly appeared in a court in the capital Sana'a earlier this month for an appeals hearing.
The U.S. wants Elbaneh on a separate issue. In May 2003, U.S. prosecutors charged Elbaneh in absentia with conspiring with a group known as the "Lackawanna Six" to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.
A former resident of Lackawanna, New York, Elbaneh left America in spring 2001 as part of a larger group that U.S. authorities said traveled to bin Laden's al-Farooq training camp in Afghanistan. The U.S. asked Yemen to hand over Elbaneh, but he was never extradited. The United States was also flustered by the reduction of al-Badawi's death sentence, which followed media claims that al-Badawi was granted his freedom after allegedly pledging loyalty to Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Sana'a officials later said al-Badawi, who was convicted in 2004 of plotting, preparing and helping carry out the Cole bombing, remains in custody. Al-Badawi has been indicted by a U.S. federal grand jury for the Cole bombing and is also wanted by the FBI.
Al-Qirbi also criticized Washington for freezing last year U.S. aid to Yemen through the Millennium Challenge Corp., a U.S. agency that distributes foreign aid based on countries' efforts at good governance.
"There is an economic problem (in Yemen) which needs to be solved and ignoring it will increase the chances of terrorists to recruit young people who are affected by this economic situation," al-Qirbi said.
Source: The Associated Press
Monday, June 9, 2008
