27 June 2004	Sunday	08 Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1425

LONDON, June 26: Families of victims killed by Muslim militants who surrender to Saudi Arabian authorities could decide if they will be executed , Riyadh's envoy to London said in an interview to be aired on Sunday.

This week Saudi Arabia gave militants a final chance to surrender under a one-month amnesty after authorities killed an Al Qaeda leader.

"The state will drop its claim on these individuals if they give themselves in, but the private claims of the families of those who were killed or who were assaulted or who were wounded will remain for them to decide and not for the state," Turki al-Faisal said, according to a transcript released ahead of broadcast.

Asked by interviewer Jonathan Dimbleby on Britain's ITV television if the families of Westerners killed could demand militants faced the death penalty, Faisal said: "It is up to them. They will decide."

Al Qaeda has waged a year long campaign of violence in Saudi Arabia, targeting Westerners, government sites and oil workers and has vowed its holy war will continue.

The US embassy in Riyadh has advised all 35,000 Americans in the kingdon to leave and Britain has authorised non-essential staff at the British embassy in Saudi and their relatives to leave if they wished.

Earlier in June, Saudi gunmen killed an Irish cameraman working for British broadcaster the BBC and seriously wounded a journalist. Just days earlier, some 22 civilians, including Westerners, were killed after militants took dozens hostage.

Security forces killed Saudi al Qaeda leader Abdulaziz al-Murqin along with three other prominent militants last Friday, hours after militants beheaded US hostage Paul Johnson.

Faisal denied statements by al Qaeda that Saudi police had colluded with militants by giving them cars and uniforms to dupe security authorities and help them kidnap Johnson.-Reuters