Arrested Yemeni al-Qaida suspects face German court
Two Yemenis suspected of belonging to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida network and arrested in Germany as part of a joint US-German terrorism investigation are to appear before a judge today, prosecutors in Frankfurt said.
German officials said the pair were arrested early Friday at a hotel near Frankfurt’s international airport and were sought by the United States as influential al-Qaida members.
An official in Yemen’s Interior Ministry identified one of the men as Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Moayyed, a leading member of the country’s Islamic-orientated Reform party and former legislator, who left the country 10 days ago for medical treatment in Germany.
A German security official had identified the man as Mohammed Ali Hassan Sheik al Mujahed and said he was suspected of being responsible for al-Qaida’s logistics in Yemen.
Another man, identified by the Germans as Said Mohammed Mohsen, was believed to be accompanying al-Moayyed on his travels and considered the less important of the two. The Yemeni source had no information on the second individual.
FBI Director Robert Mueller and Attorney General John Ashcroft said in a joint statement in Washington Friday that the pair were arrested as part of a terrorism-related investigation between the FBI and Germany.
“We are confident that our continuing partnerships with our international allies in the war on terrorism will bring us ultimate victory,” the statement read.
According to German law, the two must be brought before a judge within 24 hours of their arrest to determine if there are grounds to keep them in detention.
Germany has been central to the investigation of the September 11 attacks as home to several of the key plotters including three of the suicide hijackers who formed the core of an al-Qaida cell in Hamburg.
Bin Laden’s alleged finance chief, Mamdouh Mahum Salim, also operated in Germany and was arrested in 1998 in Munich and turned over to the United States.
The German Justice Ministry said Friday it was expected the two men would be quickly extradited to the United States, but a senior Yemeni official said in San’a that Yemen had asked the Germans to extradite the pair to Yemen.
