Sheikh Ali al-Khudair also known as Sheikh Ali bin al-Khudair, or Ali bin al-Khudayr is a well-known and influential Saudi Arabian cleric and scholar. He was arrested in 2003.

Before his 2003 arrest

Sheikh Ali al-Khudair had issued fatwa

Fatwa

A fatwā in the Islamic faith is a juristic ruling concerning Islamic law issued by an Islamic scholar. In Sunni Islam any fatwā is non-binding, whereas in Shia Islam it could be considered by an individual as binding, depending on his or her relation to the scholar. The person who issues a fatwā...

s against several Saudi-Arabian thinkers, among them Turki al-Hamad

Turki al-Hamad

Turki al-Hamad is a Saudi-Arabian political analyst, journalist, and novelist, best known for his trilogy about the coming-of-age of Hisham al-Abir, a Saudi Arabian teenager, the first installment of which, Adama, was published in 1998...

, Mansour al-Naqeedan and Abdullah Abusamh declaring them as infidel. http://www.ain-al-yaqeen.com/issues/20031128/feat6en.htm

His taped sermons and religious decrees are reported to have influenced many young people in Saudi-Arabia. http://www.tharwaproject.com/English/index.php?option=com_keywords&task=view&id=1233&Itemid=0

Arrest, 2003, and afterwards

He was arrested in 2003 in Madinah, Saudi-Arabia for supporting terrorist attacks.

Days after his arrest, an Islamist Web site posted a message from Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Laden

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...

 warning the Saudi government not to harm the cleric. Bin Laden described al-Khudair as "our most prominent supporter" and cautioned that if he was hurt, Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda

Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...

's response would be "as great as the sheik's high standing with us", this according to Mohamad Bazzi http://www.tharwaproject.com/English/index.php?option=com_keywords&task=view&id=1233&Itemid=0

In an interview with Saudi television Sheikh al-Khudair withdrew the fatwas he had issued declaring Turki al-Hamad

Turki al-Hamad

Turki al-Hamad is a Saudi-Arabian political analyst, journalist, and novelist, best known for his trilogy about the coming-of-age of Hisham al-Abir, a Saudi Arabian teenager, the first installment of which, Adama, was published in 1998...

, Mansour al-Naqeedan and Abdullah Abusamh as infidel, this according to Ain-al-Yaqeen in 2003,