A seventh al-Qaida runaway from the 23 prisoners who fled the central intelligence prison in Sanaa February has surrendered to Yemeni authorities.Daily al-Rai quoted a security source as saying Tuesday that "the seventh runaway al-Qaida member surrendered Monday in an operation that appears to have been preceded by negotiations."
The source said security forces raided an apartment in a neighborhood south of Sanaa where they seized Zakaria Yafii, who made no attempt to resist arrest. He was taken back to the central intelligence prison which he fled 75 days ago in an operation still shrouded in mystery and suspicion.
The source said the police had been tipped off with regard to Yafii's whereabouts and that the information was checked by intelligence agents before they carried out the operation and forced the man to surrender.
Yafii's surrender is believed to have been the result of negotiations between the intelligence service and tribal leaders, as were previous deals that led to the surrender of six other runaway prisoners.
Yafii was among 23 inmates who managed to flee through a tunnel dug between a cell and a nearby mosque located outside the prison's fence Feb. 3. He is one of six suspects who were waiting to be tried on charges of belonging to al-Qaida and planning terrorist attacks against foreign interests in Yemen.
The runaway prisoners described as "dangerous" included convicts in the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in the port of Aden in which 17 U.S. servicemen were killed. Their escape caused tensions in U.S.-Yemeni relations as Washington suspected the complicity of high intelligence officials.