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| Africa: North | |||||||
| Sahara tourist kidnapper may be extradited | |||||||
| 2004-05-19 | |||||||
BAMAKO - Proceedings are under way to transfer Algerian Islamic extremist Amari Saifi to one of several European countries where he is wanted for kidnapping 32 tourists last year, a diplomatic source said Tuesday. But the source said the extradition of Saifi, also known as Abderrezak "the Para", who is held by a rebel group in northern Chad, was "complicated". "This isn't a matter for Algeria and Germany alone, but for all the nations that are fighting terrorism," the source told AFP on condition of anonymity in Bamako, capital of Mali, which borders on Algeria. "I can tell you that, following his formal identification, a complicated procedure is under way to hand him and his comrades over to one of the countries where he is wanted," he said.
Federal prosecutors in the western German city of Karlsruhe said earlier that Saifi and one other person had been arrested in Chad, but the government of Chadian President Idriss Deby declined to confirm or deny the announcement. Saifi is thought by police and intelligence officials to be a leader of Algeria's radical Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which held the tourists, many of them Germans, hostage for several months after kidnapping them in the Algerian part of the vast north African Sahara desert. The GSPC is one of two movements waging an armed insurrection against Algeria's secular government. It also features on a US list of terror organisations said to be linked to the Al-Qaeda network of Saudi billionaire Osama bin Laden.
The Austrian, Dutch, German and Swiss tourists were abducted in the Algerian Sahara desert in February and March 2003 and held for between three and six months. One, a German woman, died during her captivity. The diplomatic source here told AFP that "the Para" and his companions were with the rebel Movement for Justice and Democracy in Chad (MDJT).
"To negotiate with the MDJT would be to give it a measure of recognition and respectability and would upset the legal government in Chad," the source said as part explanation of the "complications" of the affair. Furthermore, the rebel movement has been split, particularly over the pursuit of its armed campaign to oust Deby, since the death last year of its founding leader, former defence minister Youssouf Togoimi. An authoritative source in Bamako, again asking not to be named, said it was possible that arrested GSPC members, including Saifi, could be turned over under the aegis of the United Nations to one of the countries where they are sought as criminal suspects, under an international convention against terrorism.
Alternatively, Saifi and his companions could "themselves decide" to hand themselves in to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's government on the basis of Bouteflika's national reconciliation policy, which has been rejected by the GSPC and another movement, the Armed Islamic Group.
In this case, a return corridor could be opened "under good guard", back to Algeria through the desert territories of Chad, Niger and Mali.
"In any event, something should be done fast," the source said. "We hope that reports we have, that the MDJT wants to organise a trial in its Tibesti stronghold to pass sentence on these Islamists and execute them, are mere rumours. This movement has no such right," the source said.
At the end of March, the Chadian government announced that 43 members of the GSPC who had been trying to link up with the MDJT rebels had been taken on by Chadian government troops and killed in the northern Tibesti region. The MDJT denied this report, saying that any fighting between Chadian government forces and GSPC members was purely "imaginary". In Algeria, the press describes Abderrezak "the para" as an Algerian former army officer who joined Hassan Hattab, then a GIA leader, before the latter broke away to form the GSPC in 1998. After that, Abderrezak, or Saifi, was then said to have become Hattab's "number two". | |||||||
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 Dan Darling beat me to it posting this story, but I'm not moving all these comments to his. Thanks Dan. |
| Posted by: Steve 2004-05-19 11:59:41 AM |