Yemen frees terrorist charge Briton

The British son of a London-based militant was released today after serving three years' imprisonment for plotting sabotage in Yemen, the prosecutor's office said.

Mohammed Mustafa Kamel was taken under heavy security from Mansoura prison to Aden airport for a flight to San'a, the Yemeni capital, where he was expected to board a plane for London, an official in the prosecutor's office said.

Kamel was freed after finishing his sentence in the prison in the southern port of Aden, the official said.

Kamel was convicted of plotting to sabotage economic and tourist sites, allegedly with the support of his father Mustafa Kamel, also known as Abu Hamza al-Masri.

Al-Masri is an Egyptian-born preacher at a mosque in Finsbury Park, north London, who is wanted in Yemen for several bombings.

Several of the men arrested following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States are reported to have been seen at the mosque.

A member of the congregation told a British newspaper this month that he saw Richard Reid, the alleged "shoe bomber", at the mosque in 1998 with Djamel Beghal and Nizar Trabelsi.

Reid is accused of trying to blow up an American Airlines flight on December 22 by attempting to detonate explosives in his shoe.

Beghal and Trabelsi have been detained in France and Belgium respectively in connection with a plot to blow up the US Embassy in Paris.

Al-Masri, who refers to Britain as "the land of the enemies of Islam", denied on British television this week that members of his congregation had been recruited to al Qaida, the terror network blamed for the September 11 attacks.

"There's nothing going on in our mosque," al-Masri told Channel 4 television.