Murdered bin Laden relative to be flown to Saudi Arabia
01 Feb 2007 16:47:01 GMT Source: Reuters
(updates with plane taking off) By Alain Iloniaina ANTANANARIVO, Feb 1 (Reuters) - The body of a relative of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden shot dead in Madagascar was flown to his family home in Saudi Arabia on Thursday after an autopsy. Jamal Khalifa -- a brother-in-law of bin Laden -- was killed by gunmen armed with pistols and hunting rifles on Wednesday at his house in southwest Madagascar. The body would be flown to Medina in Saudi Arabia, said General Claude Ramananarivo, commander of Madagascar's gendarmerie. A Reuters witness later saw a "Saudi Arabian" plane with the body on board take off from Antananarivo airport. Saudi media said on Thursday Khalifa was a close friend of bin Laden's at university in the Red Sea city of Jeddah who went with bin Laden to Afghanistan after the 1979 Soviet invasion. Reports said Khalifa last saw bin Laden in Sudan in 1992, and that after that was suspected at various times by U.S., Saudi and Jordanian authorities of involvement in militant activities but nothing was ever proved against him. Ramananarivo told Reuters the autopsy was an obligatory formality but gave no details. A police official from the Sakaraha district where Khalifa was killed said he had been shot in his stomach and thigh. "He also received a knife cut to the head and an axe blow to the chin. The Saudi was not able to retaliate since he did not have any weapons," the official told Reuters. A second Saudi man, Quaid Abduljalil, was shot in the attack and evacuated by air to Tulear, he said, referring to the regional capital about 650 km (400 miles) southwest of the national capital Antananarivo. The Saudi foreign ministry issued a statement expressing sorrow and concern over the of death of Khalifa, who came from a prominent Medina family. COMPUTER STOLEN On Wednesday, Dubai-based television station Al Arabiya, said Khalifa, who traded precious stones, had been staying at a mine he owns on the world's fourth largest island, located off the south-east coast of Africa. Talking to the station, the dead victim's brother Malek Khalifa said the killers apparently wanted to rob his brother, saying 20 to 30 gunmen broke into his brother's bedroom and shot him dead "in cold blood". The Sakaraha official said about 10 men had been involved, while another police official said a computer and briefcase had been stolen. Malek denied his brother was involved in political activity, and said that apart from family ties, Jamal had no links to bin Laden, a Saudi national who was stripped of his citizenship long before the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. The killing took place days after the Philippine Daily Inquirer published what it said was the last interview given by the leader of the Abu Sayyaf group before his death. Abu Sayyaf is the Philipppines' deadliest Islamic militant group. It quoted Khaddafy Janjalani as saying his group had received funds from two men close to bin Laden, identifying one of them as Jamal Khalifa. CNN later cited an email from Khalifa denying any links with Abu Sayyaf.(Additional reporting by Riyadh bureau)
