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Saudi cleric who mediated the surrender of an Osama bin Laden confidant said Wednesday that extra time was needed to persuade more militants to comply with a state amnesty announced last month.
"We feel a bit pressed and that time is not enough," Safar al-Hawaly, 49, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview from the southern Saudi province of al-Baha.
On June 23, King Fahd offered an amnesty to militants who surrendered within a month of the announcement, saying they would not face the death penalty if they turned themselves in.
The offer followed a spate of deadly al-Qaida-linked attacks in Saudi Arabia targeting foreign interests and state authorities. A U.S. citizen - engineer Paul M. Johnson Jr. - was abducted in June and beheaded.
Al-Hawaly said Khaled al-Harby, a confidant of bin Laden who returned to Saudi Arabia from Iran on Tuesday in response to the amnesty, had contacted him before surrendering. Al-Hawaly said he supervised the talks regarding al-Harby's return to the kingdom.
Al-Hawaly said he and numerous other negotiators have contacted Saudi officials and requested that the amnesty be extended.
"We have talked to officials about that, but the decision is theirs and we can only hope for the best," al-Hawaly told the AP, adding that if he was given more time, "at least a handful of others will surrender."
The cleric said he was "very, very" optimistic that if the amnesty was extended, terror attacks in Saudi Arabia would stop.
On Tuesday, Interior Minister Prince Nayef warned there would be no extension to the amnesty, which expires July 23, and declared that the kingdom's fight against terror was not over.
Since May 2003, the country has suffered a series of suicide bombings, gunbattles and kidnappings that tended to target foreign workers. The attacks have been blamed on al-Qaida and its sympathizers.
Al-Hawaly, who refused to reveal how he was able to contact wanted militants, said he would need more time to persuade militants, particularly those outside Saudi Arabia, to return and take advantage of the amnesty.
"It's not exactly an easy process logistically or otherwise," he said.
Al-Hawaly said many at-large militants also had various legal concerns, including the rights of a victim's family to demand the death penalty.
Even though militants who turn themselves in during the amnesty period will not be sentenced to death by the state, Islamic law still allows the family of people killed by terrorists to demand death or life imprisonment, or request blood money.
When a family gives up its private rights, the government can only prosecute the accused on state matters, like damage to buildings, insecurity or terrorism.
In one case, the father of an 11-year-old Saudi girl killed in an April suicide attack on the national police headquarters has forfeited his legal rights for retribution provided the attackers turn themselves in under the amnesty.
Al-Hawaly said some militants were concerned they would not be able to afford compensation money for the victims, and others were suspicious of the government's intentions.
"They are not taking this by face value, they are calculating their every step," he said of the militants.
Fugitives also would be more inclined to trust the government's intentions if authorities released hundreds of detained militants, said al-Hawaly, who believes more than 700 are being held.
Al-Hawaly said militants trust him because "they know I am not aligned to the government and because I have suffered myself."
The cleric spent five years in jail without trial because of his criticism of U.S. involvement in the 1991 Gulf War to end Iraq's occupation of neighboring Kuwait. Like many Islamic extremists, al-Hawaly also opposed the presence of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
Al-Hawaly, who used to head the Theology Department at the Mecca-based Umm al-Qurra University, stressed that he was not being paid by the Saudi regime to be a mediator.
The government, however, trusts him because "they have followed my activities and know that I have no grudge against anyone, even my jailers."
He said he uses Islam's own teachings to persuade militants to recant their fiery ideologies.
"I give them evidence from Islam and narrate stories of the Prophets and their peaceful methods," he said.
"I tell them that there are many ways to support fellow Muslims other than violence in our country: through politics, public relations, and not through weakening our country economically and thus crippling necessary, material help to other Muslims around the world."
This message was edited by sajid on 7-15-04 @ 9:00 PM
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sajid
15-07-2004 @ 8:57 PM
