Washington - The United States will offer a $5 million reward for the arrest of wealthy Saudi exile Osama Bin Laden, indicted in connection with vicious attacks on Americans, including the August bombings of US embassies in Africa. "There is going to be an announcement of a reward offer of up to $5 million for each of them," an official said yesterday, referring to Bin Laden and another suspect, identified as Mohammed Atef.
The $5 million is more than twice the $2 million limit the United States previously has offered in what it calls terrorist cases. The limit was raised as a result of legislation passed recently by the US Congress.
Charges against Bin Laden, who was indicted by a federal grand jury in Manhattan, were presumably filed in his absence since he lives in Afghanistan. Federal prosecutors have been building a case against Bin Laden and his al Queda organisation since at least 1995. Their efforts expanded after the August 7th bombings of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed 253 people, including 12 Americans.