Hostage group leader arrested
2004-05-18 21:01
Karlsruhe, Germany - The suspected leader of a radical Islamic group that took at least 32 Europeans hostage in Algeria's vast Sahara desert last year has been arrested in Chad, German federal prosecutors said on Tuesday.
Ammari Saifi, known as Abderrezak "the Para", was arrested along with one other person, the federal prosecutor's office in the western city of Karlsruhe said in a statement.
Saifi is thought to be the leader of the Algerian Islamic group, the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which held the European tourists, many of them Germans, hostage for several months.
The last was released in August after a gruelling ordeal in the Sahara desert.