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| Terror Networks |
| Saudis say they've sentenced some Khobar bombers |
| 2002-06-01 |
| Saudi Arabia has tried, convicted and sentenced some suspects in the 1996 Khobar bombing that killed 19 U.S. servicemen, but the main suspects are still at large. "It is known that we arrested some parties, except for two or three fugitives who are the main suspects. We have not found them," the deputy interior minister, Prince Ahmad bin Abdul-Aziz, told the Saudi newspaper Al-Jazirah. "The rest have been sentenced under (Islamic) Sharia law, and the sentences will be announced at a suitable time." He added that before being carried out, the sentences would need to be upheld by an appeals court and a supreme judiciary body before being ratified by the king. The prince did not say how many people had been convicted or whether anyone had been sentenced to death. Saudi Arabia has said some suspects might be in Europe. The United States in 1999 extradited a Saudi dissident, Hani al-Sayegh, to the kingdom, which suspected he was linked with the bombing. Washington last year indicted 13 members of an allegedly pro-Iranian group called Saudi Hizbollah and a Lebanese man in the bombing. The United States has also accused Iran of involvement in the bombing of June 25, 1996, in which a truck exploded outside a U.S. military barracks in Dharan. There were 372 U.S. servicemen wounded. Iran has dismissed that accusation as "baseless." |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |