One associate close to Bin Laden surrendered

Riyadh yesterday announced that one person close to the leader of al-Qaida organization Osama Bin Laden, Khaled al-Harbi, surrendered himself near the Afghani-Iranian borders with the aim of benefiting from the royal pardoning, while Tehran said it handed him over to the Saudi authorities.

An official source at the Saudi ministry of the interior said that " the wanted man by the security sides Khaled Bin odeh Bin Muhammad al-Harbi, known as Abi Suleiman al-Makki who was at the Iranian- Afghani border area contacted the Saudi embassy in Tehran, showing his desire to benefit from the royal pardoning." Al-Harbi is one of the first Saudis who fought in Afghanistan with the leader of al-Qaida organization Osama Bin Laden and appeared beside the latter in a video tape broadcast by al-Jazeera TV by the beginning of 2001.

Later, the Iranian authorities announced it had handed over one Saudi suspected to be one of the important members in al-Qaida organization " at his own request" to the Saudi authorities. The spokesman for the Iranian foreign ministry Hamid Rida Asefi said that " Khaled Bin Odeh Bin Muhammad al-Harbi who entered Iran illegally from a neighboring state was handed over to his country at his own request." He added " Built on the good relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia and in the course of security agreements between the two countries and the request of the person concerned, measures were taken so as to enable the man who does not carry any official document to return back to his country under the supervision of the Saudi authorities." But the Iranian official did not explain when al-Harbi entered Iran, nor from which country.