Security frees German arrested for Al-Qaeda links [Archives:2006/996/Front Page]

Amel Al-Ariqi
SANA'A, Oct. 5 ) The German Embassy yesterday confirmed the release of a German man arrested with seven other foreigners for alleged Al-Qaeda links and smuggling weapons to Islamists in Somalia.

The embassy neither defined nor gave any further information about the freed man, but it assured that the Yemeni government didn't ask him to leave Yemen.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, a security source said earlier that the man was handed over to two German diplomats late Thursday. “The German national was freed following interrogation of the eight foreigners, which revealed that he wasn't involved with the rest in smuggling weapons to Somalia,” the source said. The other suspects include three Australians, a Dane, a Briton and a Somali.

Meanwhile in Australia, Rabiah Hutchison, mother of two of the Australian detainees, appealed for help from Australia's government. She said the focus shouldn't be on her or her past connection to terror figures, but on her two sons, Mohammed and Abdullah Ayub, who are the sons of radical Indonesian Muslim leader Abdul Rahim Ayub. He headed Jemaah Islamiyya in Australia until fleeing shortly after the 2002 Bali bombings in Indonesia.

A strict Muslim who wears a burqa, Australia-born Hutchison divorced Ayub in the mid-1990s. She went to Afghanistan with her boys sometime around 2000, but left after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

An Australian-based spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Australia confirmed that the men were in good health, but still didn't know the nature of their charges. “The consul from Riyadh visited the men on Nov. 4,” the spokesman said.

“The purpose of the visit was for the consul to provide normal consular services to the arrested men, which includes monitoring their welfare and seeking to ensure that their cases are being handled appropriately and in accordance with local law,” he added.
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