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| Arabia | ||
| Saudi Arabia starts militant trials | ||
| 2006-10-05 | ||
| RIYADH - Saudi Arabia, fighting a violent campaign by Al Qaeda supporters, has quietly begun trying suspected militants in Islamic courts, a government official said in comments aired on Thursday. The comments suggest Saudi Arabia, which rules by strict Islamic law, has shelved the idea of setting up special tribunals along the lines of state security courts used in other Arab countries and raised fears among rights activists over legal procedures. “There are Islamic Sharia courts that specialise in these issues. The trials are continuing and ongoing. There are many who have been sentenced and are finished with,” Deputy Interior Minister Prince Ahmed bin Abdul-Aziz told reporters in a clip shown on state-run al-Ikhbariya television. He gave no more details and it was not clear if “finished with” meant some had been executed.
Officials said in August that detainees believed to have clear links to militant attacks Radicals inspired by Al Qaeda began a campaign to bring down the US-allied royal family with suicide bombings in May 2003 against Western housing compounds in Riyadh. Officials say more than 136 militants and 150 foreigners and Saudis, including security forces, have died since then, but the violence has ebbed in the face of toughened security measures against what official rhetoric calls “the deviant group”. Rights activist Ibrahim Al Mugaiteeb said the lack of information about the trials was worrying. ”Through all this period that they are being questioned we don’t know anything about them,” he said, adding his Human Rights First Society estimates there are 1,500 detainees. Authorities have said that over 700 suspects have been released through a special programme to “correct” militant thinking, but public information remains hazy. ”The rules of the Sharia courts should be published and the trials should be public. The fact remains there is no transparency,” Mugaiteeb said, adding that legal representation was probably non-existent and at the discretion of judges. Saudi Arabia has offered an amnesty to militants which few have taken up. Analysts say sympathy for them among the population of 17 million Saudis is considerable. ”God will judge them harshly,” the deputy minister said. ”There is no justification at all for attacking peaceful civilians. We are an Islamic country and it is totally unacceptable that their slogan should be Islam.”
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| Posted by:Steve |