Sana'a, Yemen - A Yemeni court of appeals on Sunday ordered the arrest of a US citizen of Yemeni origin wanted by the US Federal Bureau for Investigation (FBI) on terrorism charges. Jaber al-Banna, also known as Jaber Elbaneh, is listed on the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorists" list with a reward of 5 million dollars for information leading to his arrest.
Officers from the Political Security Agency (intelligence) detained al-Banna, who was present at the courtroom, and took him to the agency's headquarters, court sources said.
The man, who holds Yemeni and US nationalities, was identified by the FBI in 2003 as a member of a cell called the Lackawanna Six.
US officials have said he was among the group of young men from Buffalo, New York, who allegedly travelled to Afghanistan in the spring of 2001 to train in camps of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Six of al-Banna's alleged counterparts in the Lackawanna case pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges in 2003 and are serving jail sentences ranging from seven to 10 years in a US prison.
Unlike other members of the alleged cell, al-Banna did not return to the United States after going to Afghanistan. He was indicted in absentia in New York in 2003 on charges of providing material support to a terrorist organization.
In January 2004, under pressure from the United States, Yemeni authorities arrested him. In February 2006, he escaped from a high-security prison in Sana'a along with 22 other al-Qaeda suspects.
He resurfaced on February 23, when he walked unannounced into a courtroom at the state security court in Sana'a, escorted by two bodyguards. He left the court after the court hearing.
His appearance before the court's judge was to appeal against a 10-year absentia jail sentence handed to him by a lower court last November.
Since then, he has attended five court hearings without being arrested, prompting US officials to object to the Yemeni government's leniency with him and renew demands for his extradition to face trial in the United States.
In the sixth hearing on Sunday, prosecutors demanded al-Banna be arrested pending the verdict by the appeal court. The court's presiding judge Muhammad al-Hakemi responded to the demand and ordered al-Banna to be jailed.
Al-Banna is on trial at the state security court of appeals in Sana'a along with 31 other men convicted by the first instance state security court in Sana'a on November 7, 2007 of plotting terror attacks, including two car bombs attacks at oil facilities in eastern Yemen in 2006.
When he first appeared at the court on February 23, al-Banna, 41, told judges that his conviction was "unfair" and he said he hadn't plotted any attacks in Yemen or the United States.
"I have not committed any act, neither in this country nor in America," al-Banna told the court's panel. "I was sentenced to 10 years in prison for doing no offence. This is not fair," he said.
Yemen, an impoverished country on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, was the scene of a suicide attack on a US Navy destroyer in 2000. A similar attack targeted a French oil supertanker off Yemen in 2002.
After the September 11, 2001 attacks on US cities, Yemen allied itself with the US-led "war on terror" and pursued suspected members of al-Qaeda, putting scores of them on trial.
