Almotamar.net Buffalo News - An e-mail message from the Yemeni government was the first response to repeated questions from The Buffalo News on whether Elbaneh would ever be turned over to the United States following his surrender earlier this month.
Jaber Elbaneh, described as one of the world’s most-wanted terrorism suspects, will not be turned over to American authorities to face charges that he helped to recruit and organize the “Lackawanna Six,” an official of Yemen’s government indicated Thursday.
“Jaber Elbaneh is a Yemeni Citizen and the constitution bars the extraditions of Yemeni Citizens to face foreign courts,” a spokesman for Yemen’s embassy in Washington, told The News in an e-mail.
Kurtis Cooper, a State Department spokesman in Washington, said he could not comment on Elbaneh’s status.
FBI spokesman Paul M. Moskal said the e-mail, to his knowledge, is the first public statement Yemen’s government has made on whether Elbaneh will be turned over to the United States. Federal prosecutors want the 40-year-
old former Lackawanna resident returned to Buffalo to face charges that he traveled to Afghanistan and trained with the al-Qaida terrorist group along with other men from Lackawanna. The U.S. State Department calls him one of the world’s most-wanted terrorism suspects and has posted a reward of up to $5 million for his capture.
Officials at the Yemeni Embassy announced May 21 that Elbaneh had surrendered to authorities in Yemen.
According to Albasha’s oneparagraph e-mail, Elbaneh will not be turned over to the United States because “both the Yemeni and American government didn’t sign an extradition treaty.”
But the spokesman indicated that Elbaneh will “be trialed” in Yemen for unspecified “terrorist and criminal violent activities.” He noted that Elbaneh is a citizen of both Yemen and the United States.
U.S. Attorney Terrance P. Flynn said the statement caught him by surprise.
“We’re in daily contact with the State Department on this case, and that’s the first comment of this nature that has been referred to us,” Flynn said. “We plan to proceed with our charges against this individual.”
Six Lackawanna men — all of whom have been identified by law enforcement officials as associates of Elbaneh — are serving federal prison terms after taking guilty pleas in the Lackawanna Six case. They are Sahim Alwan, Shafal Mosed, Yasein Taher, Yahya Goba, Faysal Galab and Mukhtar al-Bakri.
But friends and family members in Lackawanna insist that none of them would ever have taken any terrorist action against Americans.
Last year, Yemeni officials said, Elbaneh and 22 other men tunneled their way out of a prison in Yemen, but the Mideastern country has never publicly explained how the escape occurred.
The Buffalo News
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