Jaber A. Elbaneh

Who is Jaber A. Elbaneh?

Jaber A. Elbaneh is a Yemeni-American who was labeled a suspected terrorist by the United States after it emerged that he had attended al-Farooq alongside the Lackawanna Six, and remained on at the camp after they returned home. He fled to Yemen, where he worked as a cab driver before turning himself in to authorities.

As Yemeni officials squabbled over his US$5 million reward, he escaped in a mass breakout along with a number of other high-profile prisoners, and was added to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list. When Yemen convicted him in absentia for conspiracy in a plot against oil facilities, he again turned himself in to the police, and served a 5-year sentence.

He is related to Susan Elbaneh, the only American victim of a terrorist attack against the U.S. Embassy in Yemen in September 2008.