Bulgaria Missed Chance Twice to Arrest Osama's Proxy Al-Zawahiri

Diplomacy | May 11, 2011, Wednesday // 19:27|  views

Footage of al-Zawahiri reviewing al-Qaeda militants in a desert location with Osama bin Laden. The footage was released on as-Sahab, al-Qaeda`s media unit and obtained by US monitoring group SITE. EPA/BGNES

The Bulgarian authorities failed twice to arrest one of Al Qaeda's major leaders, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, because of legal and security reasons, according to former Bulgarian police executives.

Ayman Al-Zawahiri, who is now believed to be the head of the global terrorist network after the US hunted down Osama bin Laden last week, was in Bulgaria twice in the mid 1990s, former head of the National Protection Service Vladimir Manolov and former Interior Ministry Secretary Georgi Lambov told Darik Radio Wednesday.

Ayman Al-Zawahiri first arrived in Bulgaria in 1995 with an authentic passport but with another name. He stayed in Bulgaria for almost a month in a small mountain town, in a house rented by an Arab family living in Bulgaria. Bulgaria was only a stop on his way to Western Europe.

"We checked upon him personally. We made inquiries with the Embassy of Egypt. We also managed to incorporate an undercover agent close to him, and thus got more authentic information," explained Georgi Lambov.

The Bulgarian Interior Ministry, however, did not grant a permit for the arrest of Al-Zawahiri and turning him over to the Egyptian security services because Bulgaria and Egypt did not have a legal assistance treaty at the time.

Vladimir Manolov, who was the head of the Coordination Directorate in the National Protection Service at the time, was the only Bulgarian police executive who dealt directly with Al-Zawahiri's stay in Bulgaria.

According to former Interior Secretary Georgi Lambov, however, Al-Zawahiri traveled through Bulgaria one more time, at the end of 1995, when he flew in from Austria and left for Turkey.

"Back then we had an argument with the ministry. They had issued a warrant for his arrest. I told him that this is not the way to go about it because of the experience of neighboring countries. After the arrest of certain people there were 3-4 terrorist attacks in the respective country, and we were not ready to defend ourselves against terrorist attacks," Lambov said.

After Osama bin Laden's death on May 2, 2011, the 59-year-old Al-Zawahiri is believed to be the new leader of Al Qaeda and is the new most wanted man in the world.

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Tags: ayman al-zawahiri, Al Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden, terrorist, terrorism, terrorist attack, interior ministry, National Protection Service, Georgi Lambov, Vladimir Manolov

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