SANAA, 2 June 2004 — Defense lawyers in the trial of 14 militants suspected of terrorist activities in Yemen yesterday questioned the legality of proceedings in the trial and urged the court to enable them to review records of the case before continuing.
Defense lawyer Muhammad Naji Allaw said the court had allowed the prosecutor to read the bill of indictments in the first hearing Saturday before making it possible for defendants to commission their lawyers.
Such a move was illegal, Allaw maintained, insisting also on access to transcripts of interrogations made by police and prosecution officials. “We would not accept being mere decoration, just to give legitimacy to this trial,” said Allaw, one of four lawyers commissioned by the defendants.
“Unless we get all documents of the case, we will stop defending them,” he told the court during his opening argument.
Authorities say the 14 were involved in a number of terror-related plots and attacks, including the October 2002 attack on the French oil supertanker Limburg in which one crewman was killed. Five defendants are charged with the Limburg attack, one of whom is on the run and is being tried in absentia.
The five are alleged to have bought a small boat and loaded it with more than 1,200 kilos of explosives. Two suicide attackers then rammed the boat into the tanker as it approached the Al-Dhabba oil exporting harbor, on the Arabian Sea.
The other eight defendants were charged with attacking a helicopter of the US Hunt Oil company after take-off from Sanaa Airport in March 2003. Two people were slightly injured. Two brothers were also accused of masterminding bombings near buildings used by the Yemeni intelligence service, as well as attacks on the homes of three top intelligence officials in 2003.
Nine of the defendants are charged with planning suicide attacks against Western embassies in Sanaa and of plotting the assassination of US Ambassador Edmund J. Hull. The attacks were never carried out.
Prosecutors displayed in the courtroom weapons and explosives, including rifles and an anti-aircraft rocket-propelled launcher allegedly seized from the accused.
The hearing was adjourned until June 6 to give the defense more time to study the case.
The trial is the first for militants charged with terror attacks in Yemen. The proceedings, which are attended by representatives of the US Justice Department, are being conducted under intense security.
