Australia link to held woman

as posted here ... Australia link to held woman

AUSTRALIA provided intelligence about a Yemeni-based Australian woman - who was subsequently jailed and her young children placed under home detention - to Yemeni security police via the FBI, a Yemeni human rights organisation says.

The head of Yemen's National Organisation for Defending Rights and Freedoms, Mohamed Naji Allawo, has told The Age that Yemeni authorities arrested Sydney woman Shyloh Giddins, 30, after being provided information by the FBI.

The FBI in turn received its information about Ms Giddins - who converted to Islam in Sydney and then moved to Yemen - from Australia, said Mr Allawo.

The FBI has a permanent presence in Yemen. It has been running a campaign there against an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist group, following a failed attempt on Christmas Day last year to blow up a US-bound flight by a Yemeni-trained Nigerian man, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

''We believe … the Yemeni government collected some information in co-operation with the Australian [government],'' Mr Allawo said through a translator.

''Yemen is dealing with the FBI, which has its own office in Yemen, and we believe that the FBI is the connection between the intelligence of the Yemeni government and the intelligence of the Australian government.''

Ms Giddins had her Australian passport cancelled by Foreign Minister Stephen Smith on April 10 at the request of ASIO.

Her Australian lawyer, Stephen Hopper, received a letter from the Department of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday which stated: ''ASIO assesses Giddins has an extremist interpretation of Islam and her activities in Yemen are prejudicial to security.''

Mr Smith has repeatedly refused to confirm if Australia had provided intelligence to Yemen about Ms Giddins, citing operational concerns.

Ms Giddins, who has lived with her children Amina, 4, and Omar, 7, in Yemen since 2006, was interviewed by Yemen's feared National Security Bureau on May 14 and arrested two days later in the country's capital, Sanaa.

She is now being held at Sanaa's central prison, and has been refused access both to legal representation and her children - who had their passports confiscated and remain under detention in a Sanaa apartment.

Neither Ms Giddins, Mr Allawo nor the Australian government has been told why Ms Giddins is being held, but her arrest comes in the middle of a crackdown on foreigners suspected of being linked to a local jihadi group, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula - known as AQAP.

That group is suspected of being behind the attempted bombing by Abdulmutallab of the US-bound plane last year.