Al-Qaida prison escapee surrenders

SAN'A, Yemen -- A Yemeni member of al-Qaida, one of 23 who escaped from a prison here earlier this year, has surrendered to authorities, security officials said Sunday.

Khaled Mohammed Abdullah al-Batati turned himself in during the past two days, a security source said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Al-Batati was the eighth to turn himself in from the group that broke out of a heavily guarded Yemeni prison in February.

Arrested in a crackdown last year, Al-Batati was sentenced by a Yemeni court to three years in prison in May 2005 for plotting to attack the British and Italian embassies and the French cultural center in the capital, San'a.

The prisoners escaped on February 3 through a 180-yard tunnel that ended inside a mosque. Among those at large is a militant convicted in the 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Aden's harbor.

Tribal leaders and Muslim clerics were mediating between authorities and those who remain at large to get them to surrender, the security official said.

Authorities have offered a reward of $27,800 for information leading to the arrest of any of the fugitives.