Yemen has asked the United Nations to remove the name of leading Islamic cleric Sheikh Abdul-Majeed al-Zindani from the list of terrorism financers, an official source said Thursday. The U.N. Security Council added al-Zindani's name to its list of terrorist financiers in February 2004, and asked the Yemeni government to freeze his assets and to monitor his activities. "The Yemeni government have asked the United Nations to drop Sheikh Abdul-Majeed al-Zindani from its terror list, the source said in a statement posted on a state-run website. The source said the government had sent messages to the U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and U.S. authorities asking that "evidence proving charges against al-Zindani must introduced or his name should be cleared. The Yemeni cleric is also listed on the U.S. Treasury Departments list of people suspected of supporting terrorist activities. U.S. authorities say that al-Zindani is a "loyalist" to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and that he had actively recruited for al- Qaeda's terrorist training camps and played a role in the purchase of weapons for al-Qaeda. Al-Zindani heads the central committee of Yemens main Islamic opposition party, Islah. He also runs a controversial Islamic university in Sanaa. ---SP 0148 Local Time 2248 GMT
