Saudi gives 30-year sentences in "terror" trials
RIYADH, July 13 (Reuters) - A Saudi court has sentenced suspected Islamist militants to jail terms of up to 30 years in the first publicly reported trials since al Qaeda-linked militants began a campaign in 2003 to destabilise the world's top oil exporter.
The court gave verdicts against 289 Saudis and 41 foreigners, the state news agency SPA said on Monday, without disclosing the nationalities.
The sentences handed down to 323 defendants ranged from a few months to 30 years. Seven were acquitted of some charges, while others were banned from travelling abroad, SPA said.
On Wednesday, the Gulf Arab state and U.S. ally said one person had been sentenced to death in the trials but gave no details of the other verdicts.
Saudi Arabia has said the trials involved "membership of a deviant group of people and involvement in their activities and supporting and financing of terrorism".
Officials usually use "deviant group" as a reference to members of radical Islamic groups including al Qaeda.
Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdul-Aziz said in October that the kingdom had indicted 991 mainly Saudi suspected al-Qaeda militants for carrying out 30 attacks since 2003.
A group called Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula began a campaign to destabilise the government in 2003 but the violence was brought to a halt by security forces in cooperation with foreign experts.
Militant attacks included suicide bombs at housing compounds in Riyadh in 2003 and an attempt to storm the world's biggest oil processing plant at Abqaiq in 2006, the last militant operation of note.
Authorities have arrested hundreds of suspects over the last two years on suspicion of trying to revive militant cells. (Reporting by Ulf Laessing, editing by Tim Pearce; Riyadh newsroom)
