SANAA: A Yemeni court on Monday sentenced six suspected Al-Qaeda militants to death for a spate of lethal attacks on government and Western targets in the impoverished country.
Ten other defendants, including four Syrians and a Saudi, were sentenced to between eight and 15 years in jail on the same charges.
The 16 were convicted of carrying out 13 attacks over the past two years on foreign targets, government establishments and oil facilities in Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden.
These include a January 2008 attack that killed two Belgian women tourists, a March 2008 attack targeting the US Embassy and a rocket strike on a compound housing American oil workers.
The Interior Ministry said on its website late Sunday that the already high security measures around embassies have been intensified.
Although the ministry did not disclose the reasons behind the security alert, an official told AFP that the authorities have received threats linked to Monday’s hearing.
Meanwhile, the US Embassy travel warning remained unchanged since March, requesting American citizens to “exercise caution and take prudent security measures in all areas frequented by Westerners.”
In court, the defendants chanted “God is great” after the verdicts were announced. Relatives of the defendants were not allowed into the court, which deals with terror cases.
The sentences can be appealed, but the convicts did not declare in court if they will formally challenge the verdicts.
Three of the defendants in an earlier hearing pleaded innocent and demanded compensation for moral and financial damages. The others have also previously denied the charges against them.
