(Reuters) - A
Saudi Arabian court has sentenced 18 men to prison terms of 10 months to
25 years for their part in a series of militant attacks against
government and foreign targets between 2003-06, state media reported
late on Wednesday. The men were part of a
group of 50 on trial at the same time, of whom 30 have already been
sentenced to jail and one to death. Those
sentenced on Wednesday were found guilty of crimes including giving
information on foreign residential compounds to attackers, sheltering
wanted militant suspects, financing militants and possessing illegal
arms. The conservative
Islamic kingdom and U.S. ally has detained thousands of its citizens and
sentenced hundreds of them to jail after a campaign of bombings and
attacks last decade by an al Qaeda group that killed hundreds of people.
Riyadh's concerns about Islamist militants have grown more acute over the past two years as the conflicts in Syria and Iraq have attracted more of its own citizens to travel to those countries in order to join groups fighting in the name of jihad. In
February, King Abdullah decreed long prison terms for those who
traveled overseas to fight or who gave material or moral support to
groups officially labeled as extremist, including al Qaeda, Syria's
Nusra Front and Islamic State. On
Tuesday, the kingdom's Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz Al al-Sheikh,
described al Qaeda and Islamic State and the ideology they represent as
Islam's foremost enemy.
Saudi Arabia sentences 18 to jail for militant offences
Reuters
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