SANAA - Jaber al-Baneh, a Yemeni-born American terror suspect with a five-million-dollar US bounty on his head, is in custody in Yemen, the ruling General People's Congress (GPC) said Thursday.
"Al-Baneh, who is accused by the United States of heading the 'Lackawanna six' cell and has a five-million-dollar prize on his head, has been under interrogation in a Yemeni prison for several weeks," a security source was quoted as saying on the website of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's party.
The unnamed source did not say when or where the terror suspect was detained.
The "Lackawanna six," all US citizens of Yemeni descent, were accused by US authorities of attending a terrorist training camp affiliated with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan in the spring of 2001, before the September 11 attacks in the United States.
The group were rounded up in Lackawanna, south of Buffalo, New York, in September 2002 and accused by the FBI of being part of an Al-Qaeda sleeper cell. Last year, they pleaded guilty to providing material support to a terrorist organization by attending the camp.
Al-Baneh, born 39 years ago in the Yemeni province of Daleh, never returned to the United States from Afghanistan and was the only member of the cell still at large. US authorities offered a five-million-dollar reward for information leading to his capture.
The GPC's website did not say if negotiations were under way with the United States for his extradition.
But Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kurbi is due in Washington on February 3 for talks with US officials expected to cover cooperation in fighting terrorism, according to a report Thursday in the official weekly September 26.
Kurbi will hold talks with Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and FBI director Robert Mueller, said September 26, mouthpiece of the Yemeni defense ministry.
Yemen, at the request of Washington, has cracked down on suspected members of Al-Qaeda since the September 11 attacks for which the terror network was blamed and has received US help in fighting the militants.
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