Briton killed by Saudi car bomb

A British banker has been murdered today by a powerful car bomb in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh.

He has been officially identified as Simon Veness from Kent, who was working for the local Saudi-French Bank.

According to the city's police chief the attack, the latest in a deadly series against mainly European targets, took place at 9.45 am local time in a street just outside a heavily guarded, highwalled residential compound where the victim lived.

Mr Veness's four-wheel drive Land Cruiser Discovery was reduced to a charred wreck.

A Foreign Office spokesman in London said: "The Saudi police are currently at the compound investigating the explosion. We are in close contact with the Saudi authorities and the family of the man who died in the explosion."

The attack came two days after Saudi Arabia announced that it had arrested a group of 13 people suspected to have links with Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's terror network.

The Saudi government said the 13 al Qaeda suspects being held were planning to carry out terrorist attacks against vital installations in the kingdom.

It also happened just a few weeks after five Britons imprisoned in Saudi Arabia on bombing charges were told they could be freed within months.

It is suspected that the bombing campaign was actually the work of Islamic fundamentalists.