Speaking to Okaz after attending a graduation ceremony in Riyadh on Wednesday, Prince Ahmad said that the threats, which appeared earlier this month in an audiotape of the terrorist organization’s “second man” Saeed Al-Shehri, were “to be expected”.
“At the same time we believe that only Allah gives life and death. No person can precede his time or delay it, and if the reasons for death are many, death itself is one,” Prince Ahmad said. “We trust in Allah and this talk does not worry us at all.”
The deputy interior minister did not rule out the existence of “terrorist sleeper-cells” in the Kingdom, and said that the security forces were fully prepared to “counter the transgressor”.
“We have no specific information, but we can’t rule them out,” Prince Ahmad said of possible underground cells.
“These ideas, if you look back over history, appear from time to time in various areas, countries and ages, and here is where the promotion of correct awareness comes in, and the commitment to the correct creed, and attention to building and development which are not held up by these people and their likes, as they are deviants, and every rule has its deviants, and those deviants will be rooted out.”
The deputy minister also said that judicial rulings had been issued on a number of persons involved in acts of terrorism, and that they were currently under appeal.
“A large number have been tried and the verdicts are being appealed,” he said. “Each will get the justice he merits.”
Prince Ahmad reiterated the “open invitation” from King Abdullah, Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, and the Minister of Interior and Second Deputy Premier Prince Naif, to Saudis wanted for involvement in terrorism to hand themselves in to the authorities.
