American Muslim News Briefs
Friday, June 18, 2004
Protesters Decry Saudi Detention of U.S. Citizen
Click here to view full text ...
About 50 people protested outside the State Department on Thursday against the detention of a U.S. citizen they said has been held by Saudi Arabia for more than a year without charges.
Supporters said the man, Ahmed Abu-Ali, was being held by Saudi Arabia at the request of the U.S. government and demanded his release, saying they feared he might have been tortured.
"Innocent but behind bars," "Torture is un-American," and "Those who sacrifice liberty for security will have neither," read posters held by the protesters, who also accused the U.S. government of not respecting the civil rights of U.S. Muslims.
According to a Washington Post report in November, an FBI agent testified that Abu-Ali had told Saudi interrogators he had joined an al Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia and aspired to be a planner like Sept. 11, 2001, hijacker Mohammed Atta.
Mahdi Bray of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation told reporters he believed Abu-Ali was innocent, accused the State Department of "foot-dragging" and said Riyadh was willing to release Abu-Ali if Washington asked it to.
"The U.S. government knows Saudi Arabia is holding him ... why we are holding him and if the U.S. government makes an extradition request, Saudi Arabia will act on that request," Adel al-Jubeir, a foreign policy adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, said in a statement read by a spokesman.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher confirmed that Abu-Ali had been held in Saudi Arabia since June 2003 and said U.S. diplomats in the kingdom had visited him regularly..