December 8, 2003	Monday	Shawwal 13, 1424

WASHINGTON, Dec 7: US authorities have revoked the diplomatic visa of a Muslim cleric associated with the Saudi Embassy in Washington, officials said on Sunday.

The action also forced the Saudi government to sever its links with the institution where cleric Jafar Idris sometimes used to lecture — the Virginia-based Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America.

Mr Idris, who has already left the United States, is a native of Sudan, but worked as a diplomat at the Saudi embassy in Washington. He had an office in the embassy’s Islamic affairs section.

A State Department official said Mr Idris’s visa was revoked because his activities did not conform to the terms of his A-2 diplomatic visa. In comments in Arabic posted this week by Islamtoday.net, a Saudi-based website, Mr Idris said FBI agents questioned him repeatedly about his lectures and travels to Europe and asked him to leave the United States.

Reports published in the US newspapers on Sunday said that the Saudi government has decided to stop providing diplomatic status to Muslim clerics and educators teaching overseas. In the future, only staff with legitimate diplomatic business at Saudi embassies around the world will be given diplomatic visas. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the institute has trained at least 75 ministers for the US military.

The Saudi government, the reports said, also has pledged not to use its embassies for promoting religion. Saudi officials in Washington told reporters that ultimately the Saudi government will shut down the Islamic affairs section in every embassy.

The Institute for Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America is a satellite campus of a prominent Islamic university in Riyadh and revoking diplomatic status of its teachers would require them to obtain visas and work permits to teach in the US, something that US authorities may be unwilling to provide in some cases.