Riyadh: A Saudi militant on an Interpol wanted list turned himself in to security authorities after asking to be repatriated from Pakistan, the interior ministry said on Tuesday.
Bader Mohammad Nasser Al Shehri, one of 85 men on a Saudi list of alleged Islamic militants sent to Interpol in February 2009, contacted the authorities from Pakistan via his family, asking to return home, the ministry said in a statement on the official SPA news agency.
The ministry statement did not say what Shehri, 32, was doing in Pakistan. Ministry spokesman General Mansour Al Turki said he is suspected of working with Al Qaida.
"He contacted his family asking for help to return," Al Turki told AFP. "We will find out now where he was and what he was doing."
Shehri's return reduced the number of outstanding wanted men on the list to 71, according to Al Turki. Six have turned themselves in, six have been killed, and two were arrested.
It was the second announcement in a week of one of the wanted men giving themselves up to Saudi Arabia.
On Friday the interior ministry said Jaber Jabran Al Faifi, an former Guantanamo detainee who rejoined Al Qaida in Yemen after graduating from Saudi Arabia's rehabilitation programme, turned himself in through Yemen's authorities.
Al Turki said he did not know if there was a link between the return of either of the two men and a warning the Saudis passed on to European intelligence agencies recently about an Al Qaida threat to Europe and France in particular.
