U.S. asks to arrest Al-Zindani, Yemen requests proof [Archives:2006/924/Front Page]
Amel Al-Ariqi
SANA'A, Feb. 25 ) According to Al-Jazeera, Yemen's government has asked the United States to provide concrete proof to back its accusation that Sheikh Abdul-Majid Al-Zindani provided financial backing to militants before it arrests the Islamic leader.
The Defense Ministry's 26 September newspaper earlier reported that the US asked Yemen's government to arrest Al-Zindani, freeze his assets and prevent him from traveling abroad. The newspaper reported that President Ali Abdullah Saleh received a message from U.S. President George W. Bush wherein he criticized Saleh for letting Al-Zindani join the official delegation accompanying him to last December's OIC summit in Mecca.
“The message noted that Al-Zindani is listed on the UN list of terror financiers, and that taking him abroad as part of an official delegation is a violation of UN resolutions,” the newspaper reported.
According to the newspaper, Bush warned Saleh that such personal relations with Al-Zindani “could harm joint efforts of both countries (the US and Yemen) and their partnership in the fight against terrorism.”
The U.S. accuses Al-Zindani, head of Iman University, an Islamic school housing more than 4,000 students from all over the world – including Americans and Europeans in Yemen – of being a spiritual mentor to Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and supporting “terrorist causes.”
Al-Zindani, central committee chairman of Yemen's largest opposition party, Islah (Reform), told Al-Jazeera channel that he considers the U.S. request “a slap to Yemen's independence and violation of its sovereignty. Yemen is an independent and sovereign nation and has its laws and judiciary.”
This is the second U.S. attempt to force Yemen's government to take action against Al-Zindani, after it failed last September to compel the government to freeze Al-Zindani's funding on the grounds of UN Security Council Resolution 1267.
Media sources reported that President Saleh asked U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Robert Mueller to drop Al-Zindani from the agency's list of figures financing terrorism during his November 2005 trip to Washington.
This request comes at a time when the U.S. and Yemen have cracked down following the escape of 23 prisoners, including 13 Al-Qaeda convicts, who earlier broke out of a Sana'a jail. The fugitives, who dug their way out of prison, include leaders of the USS Cole and French Limburg attacks in Aden, as well as a Yemeni-American wanted by the U.S.
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