A senior Sudanese official has denied media reports that a leading militant in Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network had been arrested.
|
|
Anas Al-Liby
|
The
Sunday Times
newspaper, citing unnamed US intelligence sources, had reported that Abu Anas Al-Liby, a man named by US President Mr George W Bush as one of the 22 most dangerous in the world, was being held at a high-security prison in Khartoum.
"We in the government do not have any knowledge of this and I do not think that this is correct," presidential adviser Mr Ghazi Salah al-Din told reporters.
According to the Sunday Timesreport, Abu Anas was accused of plotting the 1998 American embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 224 people and injured more than 4,000.
He is one of nine militants seized in Khartoum and now being handed over to US authorities, the Sunday Timesquoted a source close to the CIA as saying.
The newspaper said that in the days after the September 11th attacks on the United States, between 30 and 40 al-Qaeda members were secretly rounded up in Sudan and flown to Egypt. A further 10 were arrested last month, including Abu Anas.
Sudan is on a US government list of state sponsors of terrorism. But Khartoum and Washington opened a dialogue on terrorism in mid-2000, leading to what the US has described as some positive results .