SANAA, 16 January 2005 — Yemen’s appeals court has set Feb. 26 to deliver its verdict in the case of six Al-Qaeda militants sentenced to death or prison in the 2000 bombing of the US Navy destroyer Cole which killed 17 US sailors. Yesterday’s hearing, presided over by Judge Saeed Al-Qataa, heard the closing arguments by the defense and prosecution.
Prosecutor Saeed Al-Aqel defended anew the ruling of a Yemeni court in September which sentenced two militants to death and jailed four others to between five and 10 years over the USS Cole attack.
Defense lawyer Abdul Aziz Al-Samawi called for the sentence to be annulled, stressing his clients’ innocence and saying they should be compensated for “material and moral” damages.
In the last hearing on Jan. 8, Samawi said that those convicted of the attack were being made into “scapegoats” to please the United States. “The ruling was based on statements by the defendants made under duress. They were interrogated in the absence of a lawyer,” Samawi also said.
At the first appeals hearing on Dec. 8, the public prosecutor demanded the death sentence for Fahd Al-Qasaa, alias Abu Hadhifa, and Maamun Ahmed Saeed Answa, both aged 30, who were jailed for 10 and eight years, respectively. He also requested confirmation of the death sentence handed down to chief suspect Abdel Rahim Al-Nashiri, who is currently in US custody and was sentenced in absentia, and Jamal Mohammed Al-Bedawi, 30.
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.
The attack on the Cole in Aden port on Oct. 12, 2000, was claimed by Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden. 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.
He is also suspected of involvement in attacks against the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998 that killed 224 people, and in the October 2002 attack on the French supertanker, Limburg.
