Saudi pilot Mohammed Nadhira, whose plane was downed in Iraq in February during the 1990 Gulf War, may be still alive and held in an Iraqi prison, Saudi officials have said, contrary to earlier statements made by officials and the press.
"We do not overrule the possibility that he (Nadhira) may have jumped from his plane and is now in an Iraqi prison," Lt. Gen. Attiya Al Touri told Gulf News recently. Al Touri in October chaired the Saudi team which retrieved the remains presumed to belong to Nadhira from a location inside Iraqi territories.
In October, a Saudi team cleared landmines along an 18-km path from the Saudi border to a site which the Iraqi government identified as the site where Nadhira's jet crashed.
"We have not found the pilot's body. We only found small bones weighing 1.9 kg and we are still not sure they belong to the pilot," Al Touri said.
The remains were flown to Geneva for analysis under the supervision of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Blood was taken from Nadhira's mother and sister for DNA tests by international experts who were expected to travel to Geneva. Results would be available within two weeks.
"We are also awaiting the air force technical committee's report on how the airplane crashed and whether the pilot ejected from it or not," he added.
Al Touri said that Baghdad first said that Nadhira ejected before the crash, "but that changed a few years later as the Iraqis spread word that he was inside the airplane when it fell."
"We still believe the pilot is alive and held by Iraq."
Prince Turki bin Mohammed Al Saudi, the Foreign Ministry's head of international organisation department, told Gulf News in a telephone interview "the file of Mohammed Nadhira will not be closed unless we are sure the bones belong to him."