SANAA, 5 December 2004 — Fourteen Yemenis convicted of a string of terror attacks including the October 2002 bombing of the French oil supertanker Limburg launched their appeals yesterday.
The 14, as well as another tried in absentia, were convicted on Aug. 28 on charges relating to a range of terror plots including the tanker bombing, a plot to kill Edmund J. Hull, the American ambassador in Sanaa, and plans to attack embassies of the United States, Germany, France, Britain and Cuba in the Yemeni capital.
The primary court handed down death sentence to one of the 15 defendants. Hizam Saleh Megalli, 27, was also found guilty in the murder of a police officer. Others received jail terms ranging from three to ten years.
The Sanaa Counterterrorism Court of Appeals heard appeal statements from seven convicts aged between 23 and 27, who have pleaded guilty to minor charges but denied any role in the Limburg bombing, or in the assassination or bomb plots.
After hearing initial defense pleas, the appeals court’s chief judge Naji Sayid Al-Qattaa set the next hearing for Dec. 11 and asked the other seven defendants to prepare their pleas.
One of the defendants, Muhammad Saeed Al-Ammari, 25, told the court that he was arrested in Saudi Arabia and handed over to the Yemeni authorities last year.
Al-Ammari said he was interrogated only by intelligence officers and not prosecutors before being sent to court.
One Bulgarian was killed and 12 other crewmembers were wounded when an explosives-laden boat rammed the Limburg as it prepared to enter Ash-Shir port on Yemen’s southeastern coast in October 2002.
