The Summary Court in Jeddah has heard the confessions of a number of terrorist suspects, paving the way for them to be tried in courts in Riyadh. Sources said the suspects are accused of firearms possession, trying to carry out a terrorist attack in Jeddah, and having links to active cells raising funds for groups promoting deviant thought. One of the suspect, a Chadian, has admitted to shooting at a western male in Jeddah. Saudi authorities recently added 1,200 new detained terror suspects to the 991 suspects already referred to court on terrorism charges. Among them were 520 suspects who allegedly planned to bomb the Intelligence Building in Khafji. A total of 208 others from six cells had allegedly planned a series of assassinations targeting senior Muslim scholars in the Kingdom, including Sheikh Abdul Aziz Bin Abdullah Aal Al-Sheikh, Grand Mufti and chairman of the Board of Senior Ulama, and Sheikh Saleh Bin Fowzan Al-Fowzan, member of the Board of Senior Ulema. Seventy percent of the 991 suspects previously arrested are said by authorities to be Saudis. Thirty percent of them are of different nationalities, mostly Yemenis, while some are from Morocco and Algeria. All the detainees are suspected of involvement in terrorist attacks which have struck the Kingdom since 2003 and prompted a crackdown from authorities. Minister of Justice Sheikh Abdullah Bin Muhammad Aal Al-Sheikh said in a statement on Tuesday that that the trials, due to be held in Riyadh, would be public unless ruled otherwise by the courts. – Okaz __
