SANAA, 5 March 2006 — A Yemeni court of appeals yesterday acquitted four alleged former Iraqi intelligence officers of plotting to blow up the US and British embassies in Yemeni capital in 2003.
The court, headed by Judge Saeed Al-Qattaa, also cleared the four Iraqis of the charge of spying for the intelligence services of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
A lower court acquitted the men on Oct. 3, 2005, saying prosecution could not provide evidence to substantiate charges against them.
The four men, Ahmad Salman Al-Zabidi, 45, Ahmad Muthana Al-Aani, 36, and Muhammad Mahdi Abdul-Rahman, 42, who were present at court, and the fourth, Ali Rashid Al-Saadi, who was tried in absentia, were initially charged with planning attacks against the US and British embassies in Sanaa.
Prosecutors had told the court that the defendants were officers in the Iraqi intelligence service and had come to Yemen in late 2002, three of them disguised as teachers and the fourth entering the country as a businessman.
The prosecutors said police had seized four suitcases packed with TNT explosives and remote control detonators in the group‘s alleged safe house in Sanaa.
According to confession sheets, the four Iraqis were ordered by Iraqi intelligence officials to attack the US and British embassies in Sanaa if the US-led coalition attacks Iraq.
The four men would have attacked the two missions on March 26, 2003; five days after the war on Iraq began. But the Yemeni security forces foiled the attacks and apprehended three of the suspects, according to prosecutors.
The three present defendants vehemently denied any links to the Iraqi intelligence body and rejected charges against them, saying confessions were taken under duress. The initial verdict gave the three men the right to live in Yemen with their families or leave for their home country.
Meanwhile, the Saudi Interior Ministry confirmed that the suspected Al-Qaeda members who broke out of a Yemeni jail last month were not linked to suspects pursued by the Kingdom, including the perpetrators of last week’s foiled attack in Abqaiq.
