FBI's terror suspect appeals conviction in Yemen

A Yemeni-American on the FBI's Most Wanted list of terrorism suspects appeared briefly in court Tuesday for an appeals hearing, two weeks after he was returned to jail.

Jaber Elbaneh, who has been accused of belonging to al-Qaida, is appealing a 10-year sentence in Yemen. He was convicted of plots to attack oil installations in Yemen and of involvement in a 2002 attack on the French tanker Limburg off Yemen's coast that killed one person.

Yemeni authorities had initially allowed the 41-year-old go free during his appeals - even though he had escaped from jail previously before turning himself in. He was sent to a maximum security prison May 19 after his lawyer's demand that he be put under house arrest was rejected.

Washington had offered a reward of up to $5 million for information leading to Elbaneh's arrest, but Yemeni law forbids extradition.

Elbaneh is a former resident of Lackawanna, N.Y. He left the United States in the spring of 2001 as part of a larger group that authorities said traveled to Osama bin Laden's al-Farooq training camp in Afghanistan.

In 2003, U.S. prosecutors charged Elbaneh with conspiring with a group known as the "Lackawanna Six" to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

Yemeni authorities arrested him in 2004, but he and 22 others escaped from prison in 2006 by digging a tunnel to a nearby mosque.

Last year, a Yemeni court convicted Elbaneh in absentia of plotting to attack oil installments in the country and sentenced him to 10 years in prison. He turned himself into Yemeni authorities in December, but he was not sent back to jail.

Yemen is the ancestral homeland of bin Laden's family and it has an active al-Qaida presence despite government efforts to destroy the network.