LYON, France – INTERPOL has issued international Blue Notices for 23 dangerous criminals and convicted terrorists, including some responsible for deadly attacks on US and French ships in 2000 and 2002, who escaped last week from a military prison in Yemen.

A Blue Notice is a request for police in INTERPOL’s 184 member countries to provide information about an individual’s location and activities. Some countries may decide to detain the subject of a Blue Notice even if no valid national arrest warrant exists.

The Notices were issued based on general information, photographs and other details of the fugitives sent to the INTERPOL General Secretariat in Lyon, France, by Yemeni authorities. On Sunday, INTERPOL issued an urgent global security alert, known as an Orange Notice, following the mass escape.

If further details, including fingerprints and national arrest warrants, are received from Yemen, INTERPOL could issue its better-known Red Notice, a higher status alert which is considered by many member countries to be a formal request for provisional arrest pending extradition.

One of the escapees, Jamal Ahmed Badawi was already the subject of a Red Notice issued at the request of the United States for his role in the bombing of the navy ship USS Cole in 2000. A Red Notice was also issued at the same time for his co-conspirator Fahd Mohammed Al-Quso following the attack in which 17 sailors were killed. Al-Quso was not among the 23 prisoners who escaped from the Yemen prison on Friday.

The US authorities have now approved the broader public release of these Red Notices beyond INTERPOL National Central Bureaus (NCBs) in order to assist with the international effort to locate Badawi and the other Yemeni escapees.

Only a small fraction of Red Notices issued by INTERPOL are made public, however all notices are available to law enforcement agencies via the organization’s secure global communications system, I-24/7.

The INTERPOL Orange Notice is ordinarily used to warn police in member countries of mail bombs or disguised weapons or criminal modus operandi. However, INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble personally ordered an Orange Notice to be issued after the Yemeni jail break because the escape and unknown whereabouts of al Qaeda terrorists constituted an immediate danger to all countries.

Also among the escapees is Fawaz Yahya Al-Rabeei, one of those responsible for attacking the French tanker Limburg in 2002. The break out from the Yemen prison is believed to have taken place last Thursday. It was discovered on Friday and involved a 140-metre long tunnel dug by the prisoners and co-conspirators outside.

INTERPOL is the world’s largest international police organization with 184 member countries on five continents. It operates a 24 hour a day, 7 days a week Command and Co-ordination Centre and utilizes a secure electronic global police communication system to instantly alert police around the world about dangerous criminals or significant criminal events.