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Saudis investigate explosion & tightens security for US secretary

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November 19, 2000 

RIYADH--(AP) - U.S. Energy Secretary Bill Richardson said Saturday he was "thankful" security has been tightened around him following an explosion in the Saudi capital that killed a British man and injured his wife.

Christopher Rodway, 48, died after an explosion Friday tore through his car, which authorities said may have been booby-trapped. One of his legs was severed in the blast and he hemorrhaged to death, a Saudi security source said. Rodway's wife, Jane, 50, was slightly injured.

Richardson, who is in Riyadh attending an oil conference, said Saturday he had been briefed about the attack. However, he said he did not know if it had been a terror strike.

"The security around me was increased and, needless to say, I am thankful for that," Richardson said at a news conference on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum.

Anti-American sentiment has been running strong in the Middle East, where the U.S. government is considered biased in favor of Israel in the latest Israeli-Palestinian crisis. Anti-American demonstrations have been held throughout the region in recent weeks, and an Oct. 12 attack on an American destroyer, the USS Cole, killed 17 sailors in a port of neighboring Yemen.

However, anti-British sentiment has been relatively minimal, and Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef was quoted Saturday as saying the motive could have been personal or political.

"We do not rule anything out," Riyadh newspaper quoted Nayef as saying.

The British Foreign Office has said Christopher Rodway worked in a Riyadh hospital; Nayef was quoted as saying he worked as a computer engineer and had no military links.

Friday's explosion came hours before the start of the energy conference on ensuring stability in world oil markets. Officials from oil-producing countries, the European Union, the World Bank and other international organizations are in Riyadh for the meeting.

Uniformed police kept watch in and outside the hotel where the conference was being held, searching belongings of those who entered, but security did not appear unusually tight.

Rick Roberts, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh, said Americans living in Saudi Arabia have not been overly concerned about security.

"Life continues as normal," he said. "We have issued security alerts regularly, so everyone has been careful anyway."