Families of victims killed by Muslim militants who surrender to Saudi Arabian authorities could decide if they will be executed, Riyadh’s envoy to London said in an interview to be aired on Sunday.
| I'm sure that idea's gonna make them comes swarming out of the desert to surrender... |
This week Saudi Arabia gave militants a final chance to surrender under a one-month amnesty after authorities killed an al Qaeda leader in the oil-rich kingdom. "The state will drop its claim on these individuals if they give themselves in, but the private claims of the families of those who were killed or who were assaulted or who were wounded will remain for them to decide and not for the state," Turki al-Faisal said, according to a transcript released ahead of broadcast. Asked by interviewer Jonathan Dimbleby on Britain’s ITV television if the families of Westerners killed could demand militants faced the death penalty, Faisal said: "It is up to them. They will decide."
| Wonder how hard it is to get an absentee ballot? |
Al Qaeda has waged a year long campaign of violence in Saudi Arabia, targeting Westerners, government sites and oil workers and has vowed its holy war will continue. Faisal denied statements by al Qaeda that Saudi police had colluded with militants by giving them cars and uniforms to dupe security authorities and help them kidnap Johnson. "These people are indiscriminate killers ... they want to show that they have support from the police and from other organizations, which is absolutely not true," he said. |