Saudi Arabia's Authority for Enjoining Good and Preventing Evil, or religious police, has denied US media claims that it has links to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network or the Taliban, a newspaper reported today.
Acting president Sheikh Ibrahim bin Abdullah al-Ghaith told Okaz daily the state Authority is not linked in any way with any external organisation and has not helped anyone enter Afghanistan.
US television networks reported Thursday that the Pentagon had omitted sections of a videotape showing the Saudi-born bin Laden rejoicing over the September 11 terror attacks that "could be embarrassing to the government of Saudi Arabia".
At the start of the tape, a Saudi identified as Khalid al-Harbi speaking with bin Laden "seems to claim he was smuggled into Afghanistan by a member of Saudi Arabia's religious police", according to ABC's translation.
"These claims are absolutely incorrect. We don't know this man, we have never seen him and his name is not familiar to us," Ghaith said.
"The Authority for Enjoining Good and Preventing Evil has no external links with any organisation or country. It is a government department and its efforts are concentrated inside Saudi Arabia.
"The Authority has no foreign links of any kind. It operates inside the homeland under the supervision of the wise leadership" of Saudi Arabia, Ghaith added.
He said "suspicious" attempts by US media to accuse the Authority of backing al-Qaeda were part of a "smear campaign against the kingdom".
"No staff member of the Authority has been proven to be connected to al-Qaeda or the Taliban," said Ghaith.
US officials said Friday that poor video and audio quality, not an effort to spare Saudi Arabia, accounts for gaps in the government-issued transcript accompanying the videotape.
The Authority for Enjoining Good and Preventing Evil is one of several religious authorities in conservative Saudi Arabia and has thousands of men on its payroll.
Its men usually monitor public places and shopping malls to prevent "immoral behaviour" deemed not in line with sharia (Islamic law).