Qatar frees Saudi coup plotter after 12 years

Qatar has freed the longest-serving Saudi prisoner who was sentenced to death for his role in an attempted coup against the Qatari emir in 1996, the Saudi newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat reported on Wednesday.
Pardoned by the emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani after spending nearly 12 years in prison, Wabran Al Kulaib was released and returned home on Tuesday.His freedom followed an approach by Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz, the newspaper added.
Kulaib was the only Saudi among 19 people sentenced to death after an attempted coup the Qatari authorities said was foiled in February 1996. The sentence was later reduced to life in jail.
Kulaib, who worked as a passport officer at the Salwa crossing on the Saudi-Qatari border, was arrested in the Qatari capital Doha in 1997.
He was accused of facilitating the entry of Qatari nationals involved in the coup.He attracted public attention by staging a hunger strike in 2006 to protest his mistreatment in a Doha jail. Since then, the Saudi Human Rights Society has been involved in efforts to secure his release.
The pardon comes as Qatar and Saudi Arabia, whose relations had been frosty for years, rebuild normal diplomatic links with Riyadh's nomination earlier this year of an ambassador to Doha six years after it recalled its envoy.