Wounded BBC reporter back from Riyadh

Published on Sunday 27 June 2004 02:45

A BBC TV reporter who was seriously wounded in a gun attack in Saudi Arabia which killed his cameraman has been flown back to Britain, it emerged last night.

Frank Gardner, 42, was shot by gunmen in an attack which claimed the life of 36-year-old cameraman Simon Cumbers on June 6.

The men were filming the house of an al-Qaeda militant in the Saudi capital Riyadh when they were shot from a passing jeep.

A spokesman for the BBC said Gardner, the corporation’s security correspondent, was flown home at the end of last week and is now in hospital in the UK and making good progress in his recovery.

In a statement his wife, Amanda, said: "I am extremely grateful to the Saudi government for facilitating Frank’s medical treatment in Riyadh, and for arranging for him to be flown back to the UK.

"I also want to express my heartfelt thanks to all the doctors and medical staff at the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Riyadh, without whose skill and care Frank’s recovery would not have been possible."

Al-Qaeda militants who beheaded an American hostage in Saudi Arabia may have been linked to the attack on the BBC crew, according to Saudi sources.

Saudi authorities confiscated three cars used by the group, including one believed to have been used in the attack on the BBC crew.

The terrorist cell was confronted after they dumped the beheaded body of Paul Johnson, a defence contractor who was killed after the Saudis refused to release militants.

Among those killed in a firefight at a petrol station in the capital was Abdulaziz al-Muqrin - Saudi Arabia’s most wanted man - and three others behind the recent surge of violence against foreigners in the kingdom.

Muqrin’s group had posted photographs of Johnson’s severed head on a website, six days after the 49-year-old aviation engineer was kidnapped in Riyadh.

Twelve others were arrested, including one senior militant believed to have been involved in the 2000 bombing of the warship USS Cole off the coast of neighbouring Yemen.