Yusuf al-Qaradawi has called Osama to Surrender

Cairo, 13 March (AKI) - The Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who is also a preacher on the Arab satellite television network Al Jazeera, has called on al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to surrender.

"I ask Osama bin Laden to surrender and to hand himself over to an international tribunal in order to respond to the charge that he ordered the attacks of September 11," said al-Qaradawi in an interview with the Arab newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat.

According to the well-known Muslim scholar, it is still not established "in a definitive way by the American secret services in their reports," of bin Laden's responsibility in the attacks that occurred in New York and Washington in 2001.

For this reason, he calls on bin Laden to surrender and allow himself to be judged, with the hope that he will find himeself in front of a fair court that will be able to also judge other al-Qaeda terrorists.

"I would also like to tell the American president George W. Bush that his country committed the same errors as the terrorists when it attacked Afghanistan with the excuse of hunting [bin Laden] and instead killed children and innocent people," said al-Qaradawi.

He said that terrorism cannot be fought with a war on a vast scale,"but by treating the causes of terrorism because even if Osama bin Laden is killed, thousands of others like him will come forward if the problems are not resolved."

According to al-Qaradawi jihadi groups are wrong to use only violence because in Islam, "the ends do not justify the means."