A top al-Qaeda network member, reportedly in a Sudanese jail, was killed before the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, the Arab daily Al-Hayat reported Friday.
"Abu Anas al-Liby was killed in Afghanistan before September 11," a leading Islamist told the London-based paper, on condition of anonymity, without disclosing further details, according to AFP.
Al-Liby, whose arrest was first reported by Britain's Sunday Times and was then denied by a top Sudanese official, is charged with plotting the 1998 US embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people and implicated in the 1995 assassination attempt against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.
Sudan's Interior Minister Abdel Rahim Mohammed Hussein was quoted as saying Thursday that the detained man was named Abu Anas, an Egyptian who had previously been sentenced in absentia in Egypt to seven years in jail for membership in an illegal organization.
Abu Anas was arrested in Sudan in November for possession of false Sudanese travel documents and sentenced to four years in prison after which he will be deported, Hussein said.
"He cannot be described as a leader of al-Qaeda at whatever level," he said.
"There is a person called Anas al-Liby, identified as a leading member of the al-Qaeda organization who is hunted by several circles. What I can say is that this person is not present in Sudan," the minister added.
On Wednesday, The Washington Post quoted US officials as saying the detainee in Sudan was not the notorious al-Qaeda member. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
