Program sets al-Qaeda convicts free on their honor

Program sets al-Qaeda convicts free on their honor

SAN'A, Yemen – Yemen is pioneering a novel approach for dealing with convicted al-Qaeda operatives: Let them roam free as long as they promise to be law-abiding.

For example, Ali Mohammed al-Kurdi says he sent two suicide bombers to Iraq and trained others. He was sentenced to death for his part in a hotel bombing in Yemen's port city of Aden, escaped and was rearrested.

Fawzi al-Wajeh, a bodyguard of Osama bin Laden's, was convicted in the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker and was one of 23 al-Qaeda members to escape from a Yemeni high-security prison last year. He later surrendered.

Naseer Ahmed al-Bahri, also a bin Laden bodyguard, fought in Bosnia, Afghanistan and Somalia. He was jailed for nearly two years without charges after returning from Afghanistan.

All three continue to idolize bin Laden, and they back jihad, or holy war, against U.S. forces, whether it's in the Middle East or Afghanistan. Yet they are back on the streets because they signed an agreement with Yemen's government promising to obey the law.

Breaking the agreement means returning to prison or causing a relative, who often acts as a guarantor, to be incarcerated to finish out the sentence.

The three men said they promised the government they would obey the law, not stage attacks in Yemen or use Yemen to plot attacks elsewhere. In exchange, they were freed and given money, jobs or even an arranged marriage, Interior Minister Rashad Al-Alimi said.

Yemeni officials defend the program as a practical solution in their country, the ancestral homeland of the bin Laden family, where Islamic extremism is common. There are more men from Yemen held at Guantanamo Bay than from any other country.

A Western diplomat called Yemen's program an “imperfect system of parole and control.”

Yemen was the site of the al-Qaeda attack on the U.S. destroyer Cole in 2000 that killed 17 U.S. sailors, including Lakiba Nicole Palmer of San Diego. In recent years, it has been the scene of sporadic, Islamist-inspired violence, such as on Monday, when a suicide bomber killed seven Spanish tourists visiting a temple site linked to the biblical Queen of Sheba.