SANAA, Feb 26: Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh was quoted on Sunday in a newspaper as saying that three Al Qaeda convicts who were among two dozen that escaped earlier in the month have turned themselves in.

Mr Saleh told the pan-Arab Al Hayat newspaper that three Al Qaeda escapees had surrendered and that the remaining 20 remained in Yemen. He said some were in touch with authorities but did not identify them or say when they surrendered.

The 23 Al Qaeda convicts, who were all kept in the same cell, tunnelled out of a jail earlier this month.

“Three (surrendered) and there is contact with the others, and they are still in the country,” Mr Saleh said in an interview with Al Hayat. The fugitives include a man convicted of the 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole.—AP