Saudi prisoner release from Qatar jail eases relations

Manama: Observers hope that the Qatari decision to release Saudi prisoners will herald a new chapter in their ties.

Hours after they were released from a Qatari prison where they had been confined for more than 14 years, the former Saudi prisoners sat with King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz in his palace in the Red Sea city of Jeddah.

The ex-detainees, from the Ghufran clan of Al Murrah tribe, wanted to express their deep gratitude to King Abdullah for securing their release, Saudi News Agency said.

"They were received by King Abdullah on the same day when they were allowed to go home following a request for their release from the King to his brother the Emir of Qatar," the agency said.

In their address to King Abdullah, the ex-detainees paid rich tribute to his "generous and benevolent act that put back smiles on the faces of dozens of Saudi families after 14 years of sadness over the imprisonment of their relatives for more than 14 years."

Earlier, Saudi Arabia's king thanked Qatar's Emir Shaikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani for responding positively to his request to release Saudi citizens who had been held by Doha since 1996 for their alleged role in a failed coup.

"King Abdullah highly values the gesture of Qatar's Emir. The generous pardon reflects the deep-rooted and good neighbourhood relations between the two countries and people," Saudi News Agency reported King Abdullah as saying.

No reason was given by the officials or media of either country for the timing of King Abdullah's request or Shaikh Hamad's response.

Coup

In 1996, eight months after Shaikh Hamad became the country's Emir, a coup plot to overthrow him was discovered and the "foreign-backed saboteurs" have been in prison since.

Dozens of people who were suspected of a role in the coup attempt were arrested and put on trial on charges of conspiring and plotting to undermine the country's stability and security. The plotters were believed to include members of Al Murrah tribe.

Trial

The public prosecutor on November 24, 1997 said that the 119 defendants would be tried by the court on November 26.

The trial lasted until February 2000 when the criminal court announced that 19 defendants would be sentenced to death. Another 33 defendants were jailed for life and the rest were acquitted.

Death sentence

None of those condemned to death have been executed yet.

However, for years after the foiling of the coup, Shaikh Hamad remained suspicious of the alleged role of the powerful Al Murrah tribe, and in 2005 deported around 5,000 of its members on the grounds that they broke Qatari law by holding the dual Qatari-Saudi Arabian citizenship. Stripped of their Qatari nationality, the tribe members left Qatar for Saudi Arabia.