Al-Qa'ida 'link' to murder of Briton

The alleged killer of a British defence contractor shot dead in Saudi Arabia last week is suspected of having links to al-Qa'ida, Saudi officials claim.

Saud bin Ali bin Nasser was arrested after Richard Dent, a computer engineer with BAe Systems, was murdered in his car in Riyadh on Thursday. Mr Dent, 36, a father of two from Southport, Merseyside, is the fifth Westerner to be killed in Saudi Arabia in the past three years.

Saudi security forces said that Bin Nasser, a 30-year-old Toyota salesman who is a Saudi citizen of Yemeni origin, had recently travelled to Pakistan and named his youngest son Osama in homage to the al-Qa'ida leader Osama bin Laden.

"We don't know for sure, but he could possibly be linked to al-Qa'ida," one source said.

Bin Laden last week urged his supporters to attack Westerners in Saudi Arabia in a fresh set of audio tapes. But official Saudi explanations for earlier killings of Westerners have been greeted by widespread scepticism.

The Saudis claimed several deaths were linked to feuding by rival Western groups of alcohol-smugglers. Other observers believe anti-Western sentiment among ordinary Saudis, which surged after the war in Afghanistan, is a more likely cause.

It emerged last week that there had been two other attempted shootings involving BAe personnel in Riyadh in recent weeks. And last month, an American contractor was shot dead and another wounded in Kuwait.