The US government confirmed Tuesday that Yemeni authorities had put back in jail an Al-Qaeda operative who took part in the USS Cole bombing and urged them to make him serve his full 15-year sentence.
The United States suspended the signing of a 20.6 million dollar aid package for Yemen this week after reports that Jamal al-Badawi had been allowed to return to his home more than a year after fleeing jail.
A Yemeni police official said Badawi was back behind bars in Aden.
A US embassy representative visited the jail in Aden and "physically laid eyes" on Jamal al-Badawi, said US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack in Washington. "That was reassuring to us."
McCormack refused to confirm, however, if the Yemeni authorities had vowed to carry out the sentence.
"We have made very clear that it is our deep desire that he serves his full term behind bars," he said.
Badawi was sentenced to death in Yemen in September 2004 for his part in the US Navy destroyer's bombing, which was claimed by Al-Qaeda, but an appeals court later commuted the sentence to 15 years in jail.
He escaped from prison in the Yemeni capital in February 2006, along with 22 other Al-Qaeda militants.
But Badawi turned himself in earlier this month and, according to witnesses, was allowed to return to his home in Aden in return for a pledge not to engage in any violent or Al-Qaeda-related activity.
The United States had linked the aid package for Yemen to Badawi's imprisonment.
After the Cole bombing that killed 17 US sailors Badawi was featured on a US list of most-wanted terrorists with a five-million-dollar bounty on his head.
