SANAA, 29 August 2004 — A Yemeni court yesterday handed down sentences ranging from death to up to 10 years in prison to 15 militants convicted of a string of terror attacks, including the bombing of a French oil tanker.
Of the 15 defendants, only one was sentenced to death. Hizam Saleh Megalli, 26, was found guilty of the murder of a police officer. He also was convicted of plotting with other defendants to kill the former US ambassador to Sanaa and attacking five foreign embassies.
Five defendants received prison sentences of 10 years after being convicted of involvement in the October 2002 bombing of the French oil supertanker, Limburg, off Yemen’s southeastern coast.
Four of the five — Omar Hassan Jarallah, 26, Fawzi Yahya Al-Hababi, 26, Muhammad Saeed Al-Ammari, 25, Fawzi Muhammad Al-Wajeeh, 24 — were present in the court, while the fifth, Yassir Ali Salim, 27, is on the run and was tried in absentia.
The ship was rammed by a small boat loaded with explosives as it entered the Al-Dhabba oil exporting harbor on the Arabian Sea. One Bulgarian crew member was killed in the attack.
Two brothers convicted of masterminding bombings near buildings of the intelligence services and homes of three top intelligence officers in 2003 were also given 10-year jail terms. The attacks did not lead to casualties.
Fawaz Yahya Al-Rabyee, 27, and his brother Abu-Bakr, 26, were also fined 18 million rials (about $98,000) as compensation for damages caused by a bomb attack on the headquarters of the Civil Aviation Authority the same year. The Sanaa counter-terrorism court also sentenced five other defendants to five years imprisonment, while two others were given three years.
The seven were convicted of attacking a helicopter belonged to a US oil company in March 2003. They were also found guilty of planning suicide bomb attacks against embassies of the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Cuba, and of plotting to assassinate the former US ambassador, Edmund J. Hull.
Chief Judge Ahmad Al-Jurmozi read out the verdicts at the heavily guarded courthouse. Masked anti-terrorism troopers were deployed on rooftops around the court building and surrounding roads were blocked by armored vehicles.
Throughout their three-month trial, the 14 defendants kept talking to each other as the court heard prosecution and defense arguments or reviewed evidence. But as the sentences were read out, the convicts expressed defiance, raising their fists and shouting, “Allah-o-Akbar!”, “Death to America” and Long Live (Osama) Bin Laden”.
It was the first mass conviction of militants in Yemen, which has seen a series of attacks in the past four years, including the bombing of the US destroyer USS Cole in October 2000. Six other suspects charged with the Cole bombing are being tried by another court.
