Morocco extradites Australian to Saudi Arabia: wife

An Australian man detained in Morocco has been extradited to Saudi Arabia, his family said Wednesday, despite his lawyer arguing he was not the man identified in an arrest warrant.

Osama Al Hasani, 43, "was extradited to Riyadh on Saturday and I have had no news since," his wife Hana Al Hasani told AFP.

Moroccan police apprehended Hasani in Tangiers last month on the basis of an Interpol red notice issued at Riyadh's request in connection with an alleged 2015 car theft, according to the MENA Rights Group, a Geneva-based legal advocacy organisation.

But the wanted man's name and date of birth differed from Hasani's particulars, his lawyer Mohamed Al-Bakri told AFP last week.

Several rights groups had expressed fear Hasani would face torture if he were extradited to Saudi Arabia.

A Moroccan court ruled in favour of Saudi Arabia's extradition request "without agreeing to conduct an identity verification procedure and without bringing proof that he is Saudi," Bakri had said.

Rights organisations and some media outlets have described Hasani as a dual Saudi-Australian national.

The MENA Rights Group said Wednesday that it had "asked the UN Committee on Enforced Disappearances to urge Morocco to clarify the circumstances that led to Osama Al Hasani's extradition... despite foreseeable risks of torture and enforced disappearance in the country."

ALQST, a rights group specialising in defending human rights in Saudi Arabia, called on the Saudi authorities to release Hasani.

The group had said last week that the Moroccan court's decision to extradite him posed "a grave danger to his life and safety".

"He would face (an) unfair trial and risk being subjected to torture and other ill-treatment," it had said.

No information was available from the Moroccan authorities on the case.

Agencies contributed to this report.