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Riyadh wants custody of Saudis held in Afghanistan

Saudi Arabia has demanded the custody of its citizens captured in Afghanistan and vowed to punish those who were criminally involved in the embattled country.

"These are our sons, we'll take them. Those who are criminally involved will be punished. But they are our responsibility... We hope other countries will do the same," Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said.

Many Saudis are believed to be among an unknown number of the so-called Arab-Afghans who, along with fighters from non-Arab Muslim countries, form the backbone of terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network.

On bin Laden, the Saudi foreign minister said, "He is not a Saudi citizen ... He is an international terrorist. I don't know the legal side of the argument, who has the right to him first."

Saudi Arabia stripped bin Laden of his Saudi citizenship in 1994.

"If the United States is going to catch him, I'm sure they're going to make a military tribunal and try him. Apparently, this is in the offing, isn't it?" media reports quoted the minister as saying.

He said, "We will pursue our rights as the legal order allows us to."

PTI

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