RIYADH, April 11: A Saudi court sentenced a cleric who fiercely supports the segregation of the sexes to five years in prison on Wednesday for ‘incitement’ against rulers, media reported. Yussef al-Ahmad was also sentenced to a five-year travel ban and fined 100,000 Saudi riyals, said aleqt.com, the website of Al-Eqtesadiya daily. The cleric, who was arrested in July, had been charged with “disobedience to the rulers and incitement against them”, the website said. He called for destroying the Grand Mosque, home to the Holy Kaaba, and rebuilding it in a way that would make it impossible for men and women to mix during pilgrimages. Mr Ahmad was arrested after he posted a YouTube video in which he blamed King Abdullah and other officials for the lengthy periods that people in Saudi Arabia could be detained without trial
Saad al-Faqih was a professor of surgery at King Saud University until March 1994. He was jailed for his heavy involvement in the country's reform movement. On his release from prison, he became director of the London office of the Committee for the Defense of Legitimate Rights (CDLR), then the leading Saudi opposition group. He left CDLR to form the Movement for Islamic Reform in Arabia (MIRA) in 1996. MIRA is centered in London and is widely recognized as the only serious opposition to the House of Saud. Aside from his role as head of MIRA, Saad al-Faqih is widely recognized as a leading expert on al-Qaeda and Salafi-jihadism.
Osama Bin Laden, the world's most wanted man, has connections to a leading Saudi dissident based in London, BBC Radio's Five Live Report has revealed. The programme provides evidence that Saad Al-Fagih, a key figure in the London-based campaign opposed to the Saudi regime, bought a satellite phone that was later used by Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda organisation. On 30 July 1998 one of the suicide bombers who blew up the US embassy in Nairobi telephoned the satellite phone number: 00 873 682 505 331. Eight days later the suicide bombers struck in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam killing 247 people. The satellite phone was the very same one that had been bought by Saad Al-Fagih in November 1996. Al-Fagih was also involved in a campaign to stop the deportation of another Saudi dissident, Mohammed Al-Masari, from Britain. The campaign to stop Al-Masari's removal by then Conservative Home Secretary Michael Howard finally succeeded in early 1996. 'Same Cause' Al-Masari admits he has talked with and helped Osama Bin Laden in the past and would do so again, telling Five Live Report: "Yes, why not?" The programme asked Al-Masari why he had helped Osama Bin Laden in the past, he said: 'It's the same cause." When asked if he would still help him he replied: "Yeah, if we can help anything, why not?" Labour MP George Galloway was also part of the campaign to keep Al-Masari from being deported to the Caribbean island of Dominica in 1995. The MP - who had a blazing row at Westminster this week after he was called an apologist for Saddam Hussein by a government minister - told the programme: "I have never seen any evidence that either Al-Masari or Al-Fagih were in any way connected to violence and if you have uncovered any I will listen to your programme with interest.' "To attempt a smear by association with that widely supported campaign is disreputable," Mr Galloway said. There is no suggestion that the MP knew about the purchase of the satellite phone. Evidence that Saad Al-Fagih bought the satellite phone later rung by one of the men who blew up the US embassy in Nairobi emerged during a New York trial in 2000, when four al-Qaeda suspects were found guilty of the African embassy bombings. United States attorney Kenneth Karas told a grand jury what was in Exhibit 1623: an order form for an Exact-M 22 Satellite Telephone, dated 1 November 1996: "and for the record, payment portion, Saad Al-Fagih." The order was signed 'S. R. H. Al Fagih.' When asked about the purchase of the satellite phone, Al-Fagih said: "Go and ask anybody else. I do not confirm anything here. "I do not even confirm there have been any details about purchase or not purchase.....I have no comment on this." He told the programme: "Everybody knows that I am totally committed to peaceful agenda." In 1997 the Select Committee on Standards and Privileges investigated a complaint that George Galloway had not declared an interest when speaking on Saudi Arabia the year before. MPs threw out the complaint but looked more closely into the question of Galloway acting as a financial intermediary. Mr Galloway was paid £5,000 in cash by Al-Fagih in late 1995 to early 1996 to repay costs incurred on behalf of others during the campaign to prevent Al-Masari's deportation. He was also given £1800 in cash by Al-Fagih to pass on to academics to help with the same campaign. Mr Galloway has never identified the academics. Full record In the parliamentary committee's concluding report they found that: 'It is unacceptable for any member to be involved in recycling cash between third parties. "It is also highly undesirable for any member to act on behalf of any organisation where no full record is kept of all financial transactions with which the member is associated. "It is bound to be susceptible to misinterpretation and risks bringing the house into disrepute. We are particularly concerned that Mr Galloway's actions were on behalf of an overseas interest
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