A suspected Saudi al Qaeda militant has flown back to Saudi Arabia from the Iranian-Afghan border region to surrender under a government amnesty, state television said on Tuesday. It said Khaled al-Harbi, also known as Abu Suleiman al-Makki, gave himself up at the Saudi embassy in Tehran. Television showed a wheelchair-bound Harbi being carried off a plane on arrival in the kingdom.
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A disabled wanted Saudi militant and suspected al-Qaeda leader has turned himself in to authorities under a royal amnesty, the interior ministry announced on Tuesday. "The wanted Saudi Khaled bin Odeh bin Mohammed al-Harbi, alias Abu Suleiman al-Makki, who had been in the Iranian-Afghan border region, contacted the (Saudi) embassy in Iran", state television reported, quoting an interior ministry official. Harbi said he wanted to take up the amnesty offer and was flown to Saudi Arabia after an identity check, the official said. "Since he is paralysed, he will be transferred directly to hospital to receive medical treatment," he said. State TV showed Harbi being carried down a plane and put on a wheelchair. He was accompanied by a woman and a teenager. He is only the third militant to surrender since the one-month amnesty was offered on June 23, but does not figure on a most-wanted list of suspected Islamist militants.
More from BBC:
According to some reports the paralysed sheikh had appeared in one of Osama Bin Laden's video tapes praising the 11 September attacks in the US. The December 2001 videotape - thought to have been filmed in the Afghan city of Kandahar - was taken by the Bush administration as proof that Bin Laden masterminded the 11 September attacks. Saudi diplomats arranged travel documents for Mr Harbi after he turned himself in at the Saudi embassy in Tehran, the interior ministry said. "Thank God, Thank God... I called the embassy and we were very well received," he told Saudi TV at the airport terminal. "I have come obeying God, and obeying the rulers." He described the amnesty as "generous" and urged others to take advantage of it. Past reports have identified him as Bin Laden's interlocutor in the Kandahar videotape, saying he was married to the daughter of al-Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahri.
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