Seven Security Detainees Escape Saudi Jail

RIYADH (Reuters) -Six Saudis and a Yemeni held in Saudi Arabia on security charges have escaped a detention center in the capital Riyadh, state news agency SPA said on Saturday.

“Seven detainees at Malaz prison in Riyadh, held in connection with security cases, were able to leave the detention center,” SPA quoted an Interior Ministry statement as saying.

It did not say when or how they had escaped.

Asharq Alawsat carries this report from the Saudi Press Agency (SPA). These individuals were not on any of the “wanted lists”, but they are considered a security threat, at least at this point. The SPA site is apparently having some trouble, so I can’t link to the original story.

The Washington Post carries a Reuters report that is substantially identicial to the SPA piece, though.

But this BBC article gives some additional information:

An Interior Ministry spokesman said the suspects were religious extremists and said they had been arrested in separate incidents over the past year.

“They are extremists, the believe in the takfiri thoughts,” spokesman Mansour al-Turki told the Associated Press news agency.

The radical takfiri ideology is followed by radical Sunni Muslims.

[UPDATE 20:25: Arab News has considerably more detail, including a list of the escapees:

The seven fugitives were identified as Abdul Aziz Abdullah Sulaiman Al-Masoud, Osamah Abdul Rahman Sulaiman Al-Wihabi, Turki Hilal Sanad Al-Mutari, Ghazi Muhasan Al-Usami Al-Utabi, Abdul Aziz Mohammed Saleh Al-Falaj, Mohammed Abdul Aziz Al-Qahtani and the Yemeni Abdul Rahman Ta’ha Al-Hatar. According to Al-Arabiya Television, Al-Wihabi is believed to have harbored the former Al-Qaeda leader in the Kingdom, Younes Al-Hayari, who figured No. 1 on the Kingdom’s list of most-wanted terrorism suspects last year. He was gunned down by Saudi security forces in a raid on a villa in the capital’s Al-Rawda District on July 4, 2005.]