GERMANY:TWO YEMENI CITIZENS WITH SUSPECTED LINKS TO AL QAEDA ARE ARRESTED AND DETAINED BY POLICE IN FRANKFURT

Record ID: 645745

  • Title: GERMANY:TWO YEMENI CITIZENS WITH SUSPECTED LINKS TO AL QAEDA ARE ARRESTED AND DETAINED BY POLICE IN FRANKFURT
  • Date: 11th January 2003
  • Summary: (EU) FRANKFURT, GERMANY (JANUARY 11, 2003) (REUTERS) WIDE OF CLAUS-MICHAEL ULLRICH, SPOKESMAN FOR THE DISTRICT COURT GIVING INTERVIEW SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (German) CLAUS-MICHAEL ULLRICH, SPOKESMAN FOR THE DISTRICT COURT, SAYING: "The further procedure is that the Upper Regional Court will determine who will decide. (QUESTION: When?") That also is a decision that the Upper Regional Court will make. The Attorney General is leading the case and the procedure is that the case will be sent to the Upper Regional Court and the District Court has nothing more to do with the case." SV: ULLRICH SPEAKING TO MEDIA SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (German) ULLRICH, SAYING: "The case will be forwarded in the next two or three days." SV: JOURNALISTS SCU: (SOUNDBITE) (German) ULLRICH, SAYING: "No further comment on this case. No further comment." WIDE OF ULLRICH GIVING INTERVIEW; ZOOM INTO POLICE HEADQUARTERS BUILDING SV/PAN: POLICE VEHICLES WITH SIRENS BLAZING AND LIGHTS FLASHING DRIVING AWAY Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 26th January 2003 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: FRANKFURT, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement
  • Reuters ID: LVA62TLECE0GCHFNOWPLJE7WP9EM
  • Story Text: Two Yemeni citizens suspected of links to the al Qaeda network have been arrested and detained in Frankfurt.
    The two Yemeni citizens were arrested in Germany on Friday (January 10) and detained in custody by a magistrate judge on Saturday (January 11), a spokesman for the court said.
    German anti-terrorism officials have said the men, who were arrested in a Frankfurt hotel on a U.S. request, are Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hassan al-Mouyad and Mohammed Moshen Yahya Zayed. The two are linked with supporting al Qaeda, but not directly with the September 11 attacks, officials have said.
    They were presented on Saturday (January 11) to the judge, who decided to keep the two men in custody, legal sources said. A regional court in Frankfurt will examine an arrest warrant and decide on possible extradition requests in coming weeks, they said.
    U.S. officials have said Sheikh Mohammed Ali al-Mouyad, a preacher at Al Ihsan Mosque, one of the main mosques in Yemen's capital Sanaa, is a significant fund-raiser for al Qaeda but not a financial official for al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
    Yemeni officials in Sanaa said both men were members of the secular Islah party. Islah party members denounced their arrest and said they had no relation to al Qaeda.
    A spokesman for the German Justice Ministry has said Germany is expecting an extradition request from the United States, but the ministry did not confirm whether it had already received it.
    Yemeni officials have also said they have asked for the two suspects' extradition and would interrogate them as soon as they returned home.
    An extradition request by the United States could cause a legal battle with Germany, as German law does not allow the extradition of suspects if they could face the death penalty in the state they are extradited to.
    In November Berlin only agreed to cooperate in the U.S.
    trial of French national Zacarias Moussaoui, charged over the September 11 attacks, after Washington assured Germany their evidence would not be used to obtain the death penalty.
    Germany was an important launch pad for the September 11, 2001, hijacked airliner attacks on the United States blamed on al Qaeda. Three of the four pilots lived in the northern port city of Hamburg in the 1990s.
    The first September 11 trial is under way in Hamburg against a suspected co-plotter, Moroccan student Mounir El Motassadeq.
    Yemen, the ancestral home of bin Laden, is seen in the West as a haven for Muslim militants, including the al Qaeda network.
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