Qatari intelligence detours the plane of coup convict

The Qatari daily al-Watan published on Monday said that Qatari intelligence has diverted the private plane of the main figure convicted in the failed coup attempt in Qatar in 1996 toward Doha to arrest him.

On Sunday, Qatari officials announced that the Qatari authorities had arrested Sheikh Hamad Bin Hamad Bin Jasem al-Thani, who was a minister of the economy at the beginning of the 1990s and the police chief in the 1980s.

The paper stated that, "Members of the intelligence were assigned to follow up the moves of the convicted sheikh while he was trying to travel from Beirut to a certain country and that one of the intelligence members was able to divert the procession of the plane to Doha."

The paper continued that the convict will be brought before the greater criminal court and that the attorney general will address to him four accusations which are: attempting to topple the Emir of Qatar by the use of force; carrying weapons against the state of Qatar; contacting a foreign country to damage his own country; and disclosing the military secrets of the state of Qatar.

A former Qatari diplomat who refused to be identified stressed that Sheikh Hamad was carrying a Bahraini passport and that he had dropped his Qatari nationality.