Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — Prince Turki Al-Faisal, former head of Saudi Arabia’s General Intelligence, revealed that the United States rejected an offer by the Sudanese government to extradite Osama Bin Laden when he was in Khartoum.

Prince Turki made the remarks while attending Al-Mawqif program on the Saudi Television channel on Wednesday.

“Then Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir informed King Abdullah about his government’s readiness to hand over Osama Bin Laden to Saudi Arabia and for this Al-Bashir stipulated a condition that Bin Laden should not be tried in the Kingdom. But King Abdullah rejected this, stressing that the Kingdom is governed by the Islamic Shariah and no one is above it, and as such Bin Laden will be tried for what he has done.”

Prince Turki disclosed that the Sudanese government then made the offer to extradite Bin Laden to America but the Clinton administration rejected it on the ground that they have no substantial evidence to prove the militant leader's hostile acts against the United States.

The former intelligence chief stressed that the Kingdom has succeeded in confronting terrorism and curbing it through the wise management of this file, in the past as well as at present.

“We must always be in the forefront of confronting any possibility of terrorism knocking on our door from time to time,” he added.