Gitmo inmate claims Saudi royal involved in terrorism

MIAMI: An accused al-Qaeda bomb-maker who went to college in Arizona told military officials at the US base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that he believed an unnamed member of the Saudi royal family was part of an effort to recruit him for violent extremist acts before the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, according to a newly released transcript.

Ghassan Abdallah al-Sharbi said a religious figure in Saudi Arabia used the term “your highness” during a telephone conversation with a man, just before urging al-Sharbi to return to the US and take part in a plot against the US that would involve learning to fly a plane.

The Sept 11 commission found there was no evidence to indicate that the Saudi government as an institution or Saudi senior officials individually had supported the attacks, and the kingdom’s government has consistently denied it had any role in the plot.

It was early 2001, and al-Sharbi had only recently returned from the United States, where he had taken some flight school courses in Phoenix with two men who would become hijackers in the 9/11 attacks.

Al-Sharbi described the conversation in June to the Periodic Review Board, which assesses whether Guantanamo prisoners can be released.

The Pentagon on Thursday posted a transcript, with parts blacked out, on the website of the board, which includes representatives from six US agencies and departments. The statement is convoluted and lacks important details, such as whether the “religious figure” might be close to any Saudi officials.

It does not indicate who the Saudi royal might be.

The term can be used for thousands of members of the Saudi royal family; al-Sharbi did not say he met the man.