SANAA, 9 January 2005 — An appeals court decided yesterday to hear final arguments in the case of the 2000 bombing of a US Navy destroyer in Yemen on Jan. 15 after a defense lawyer for Al-Qaeda militants convicted of the attack charged they were being made into “scapegoats” to please the United States.
The defense has challenged the ruling of the Yemeni court which in September sentenced two militants to death and jailed four others to between five to 10 years over the attack on the USS Cole, which claimed the lives of 17 US sailors.
“The ruling was based on statements by the defendants made under duress. They were interrogated in the absence of a lawyer,” Abdul Aziz Al-Samawi said at yesterday’s hearing.
Samawi also charged that the trial violated Yemeni law, saying the defendants were interrogated only two weeks before the trial although they had been in detention for four years. The prosecution had turned the militants into “scapegoats (to please) the United States,” he said. The court delivered a verdict of which it was “unconvinced” because it was under the influence of the prosecution and the matter was “related to the world’s major power,” the lawyer said.
Judge Saeed Al-Qataa, who presided over the hearing at which five defendants were present, said closing arguments would be heard next Saturday. At the first appeals hearing on Dec. 8, the public prosecutor demanded the death sentence for two more of the militants convicted over the suicide attack on the Cole in Aden port on October 12, 2000.
He also requested confirmation of the death sentence handed down to two militants over the attack, claimed by Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden.
Chief suspect Abdel Rahim Al-Nashiri, who is currently in US custody and was sentenced in absentia, and Jamal Mohammed Al-Badawi, 30, were both given the death penalty over the bombing.
Prosecutor Saeed Al-Aqel also requested the death penalty for Fahd Al-Qasaa, alias Abu Hadhifa, and Maamun Ahmed Saeed Answa, both aged 30, who were jailed for 10 and eight years, respectively.
Ali Mohammed Al-Marqab, 30, and Murad Saroori, 27, received five years each. The prosecutor general asked that their prison terms be increased to eight years.
Born in Saudi Arabia of Yemeni descent, Nashiri has been described as Al-Qaeda’s chief for naval and Gulf operations. He was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in October 2002 and handed over to Washington.
