SANAA, 12 August 2004 — Prosecutors presented to a Sanaa counter-terrorism court yesterday first physical evidence of the involvement of six suspects in the October 2000 bombing of the US destroyer USS Cole off Yemen.
The evidence included lease contracts for four safe houses in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, the scene of the attack that left 17 US sailors aboard the vessel and injured 33 others.
Two of the houses were used by the suspects to prepare the boat that was later used in the bombing of the US Navy ship, and the other two were used for monitoring the harbor, prosecutors told the court.
Among the evidence were also a car and a trailer that were allegedly used in towing the explosive-laden dinghy to the harbor.
Six Yemenis, including four Al-Qaeda suspects, were charged with the attack when the trial began on July 7. Five of the suspects were present in the court, while the alleged mastermind of the attack Abdul-Raheem Al-Nashri, alias Mulla Bilal, is being tried in absentia.
Al-Nashri, who is reportedly in US custody, was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in November 2002 and handed over to US authorities. He was described at the time as Al-Qaeda’s chief of operations in the Gulf.
Among the defendants present were three key suspects in the attack: Jamal Muhammad Al-Badawi, alias Abu Abdurrahman, 39, Fahd Muhammad Al-Qasaa, also known as Abu-Houdhifa, 30, and Maamoun Ahmad Onswa, alias Mutaz, 30.
The two others are police officers charged with providing the other suspects with forged ID documents.
The six men were accused of forming an armed band to carry out terrorist acts, endangering state security and social stability, and harming the country’s highest interests.
Prosecutors said two suicide bombers, identified as Ibrahim Al-Thour, alias Al-Nibras, and Hassan Al-Khamri carried out the attack. The two men allegedly rammed the dinghy laden with more than 200 kilograms of high explosives into the US destroyer as it stopped at the Aden port for refueling.
Prosecutors also presented to the court’s Chief Judge Najeeb Al-Qadri a video camera, saying it was used by Al-Qasaa in filming the attack from a house overlooking the port and a pager through which he was supposed to receive a signal for starting his task.
When asked by the chief judge about the camera and the pager, Al-Qasaa admitted that they were in his possession, saying that he had received them from the second main suspect in the attack, Jamal Al-Badawi.
But when he was asked about the car and the trailer, he rejected his knowledge about them.
Chief prosecutor Saeed Al-Aqil told the court that reports of the crime scene examinations were not available because the US Navy had prevented Yemeni forensic teams from boarding the vessel after the attack.
Al-Aqil, however, submitted to the court a report on technical damages on the USS Cole prepared by US investigators.
Two representatives of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation attended yesterday’s hearing. The court adjourned the trial until Aug. 18.
