Three of 23 suspected Al-Qaeda members who escaped from a local prison in have surrendered and contacts are underway with others to persuade them to follow suit, Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh has disclosed.
The escape included the masterminds of a deadly bomb strike on a US destroyer in Yemen in 2000. "There are contacts with the escapees, and some of them surrendered to security authorities," Saleh told the London-based daily Al-Hayat Sunday.
"So far three (have turned themselves in), and there are contacts with the remainder, who are inside (the country) ... They have not left Yemen," the Yemeni leader stressed.
One of the escapees was Jamal Badawi who was serving a 15-year sentence for the 2000 bombing of the destroyer USS Cole off the southern port of Aden, in which 17 US sailors were killed. "They (those still on the run) want to turn themselves in. Most were convicted in courts and have served more than half their sentences ... There are now contacts with the political security and national security agencies (aimed at bringing about) their surrender," Saleh said.
