Ahmad Abdullah Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – The Prosecutor General accused one of the defendants appearing at the Special Penal Court in Riyadh Monday of keeping a number of foreigners living in the country under surveillance. The defendant belonging to the so-called “Cell of 55” kept watching the foreigners and noted down the time they left their homes and returned in order to target them. He was also accused of forming a terrorist cell called “The Islamic Army of Lions” with the aim of carrying out attacks, kidnapping a government official in the southern part of the Kingdom and targeting a well-known journalist. This defendant also searched the Internet for information on a deadly poison that kills instantly without leaving any trace. Another defendant in the same cell is facing charges of providing cover for a Syrian expatriate who recruited young men to fight in Iraq. A third defendant was accused of sheltering several terrorists in his house. A fourth defendant in the cell faced charges of communicating with a number of Al-Qaeda members, getting training in dismantling and assembling machine guns and misleading security men after destroying a SIM card belonging to one of the wanted terrorists after learning that the authorities were looking for him. A fifth defendant was accused of receiving SR30000 in cash from an Al-Qaeda operative in the Kingdom in order to purchase a car, to be used in the killing of several French nationals. Another defendant faces charges including giving his identity card to a terrorist to rent a building for the use of the terror cell. A seventh defendant was accused of keeping a housing compound under surveillance. He also faced charges of targeting the US Consulate in Jeddah and a plot to target US and British nationals returning home via King Abdulaziz International Airport. The eighth defendant was charged with renting the car that was used in the storming of the US Consulate in Jeddah.
