SANAA, 28 November 2005 — A Yemeni preacher convicted of murdering a top opposition politician in December 2002 was executed in Sanaa yesterday, prison officials said.

Ali Ahmad Jarallah, 28, was executed by firing squad at the central prison in the capital Sanaa, they told Arab News. “A police officer shot four fatal shots from a Kalashnikov rifle into Jarallah’s back,” one official said.

A Yemeni court sentenced Jarallah in September 2003 to death for shooting dead Jarallah Omar, the assistant secretary-general of the Yemeni Socialist Party. The sentence was upheld by an appeals court and President Ali Abdullah Saleh affirmed the verdict last week.

Jarallah, a prayer leader at a mosque in the city, shot Omar several times at close range during a congress for Al-Islah party in Sanaa on Dec. 28, 2002. He was arrested on the spot.

Jarallah told the primary court that he killed Omar because of his stance against the Shariah. “I killed a man who fought against God’s law,” he shouted after the verdict was announced on Sept. 14, 2003.

The execution, carried out amid tight security, was attended by relatives of the assassinated politician and his family’s lawyers. Journalists were barred from attending.

Armored police vehicles patrolled the prison’s vicinity and special force personnel were stationed on the prison walls.