A UN Security Council committee is set to remove Saudi dissident Saad Al Faqih from the United Nations’ Al Qaeda sanctions list this weekend if no council member demands that the 15-nation body intervene, UN diplomats said yesterday.

The London-based Faqih was added to the UN Al Qaeda sanctions list in December 2004, days after the US Treasury Department hit him with US sanctions for suspected links to the late Osama bin Laden’s militant network, which was responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. “Unless someone calls for the Security Council to take up the issue, Saad Al Faqih will be de-listed,” a council diplomat said on condition of anonymity. “So far no one has called for the council to act.”

Other diplomats confirmed his remarks about Faqih, formerly a professor of medicine at a Saudi university. All said it remained theoretically possible for the United States or another council member opposed to Faqih’s de-listing to call for Security Council intervention at the last minute.

There are currently 252 individuals and 69 entities or groups on the United Nations Al Qaeda sanctions list, including Faqih. All individuals on the list are subject to asset freezes and an international travel ban.

Britain, Faqih’s current host, is one of four council members that support the recommendation of the Al Qaeda sanctions committee ombudsman, Kimberly Prost of Canada, that Faqih be taken off the blacklist, despite strong objections from Riyadh, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

The other three countries supporting Prost’s recommendation, the envoys said, are Germany, South Africa and Guatemala. “The Saudis were pushing really hard against the idea of de-listing Al Faqih,” one diplomat said.