SANAA, 7 March 2007 — A Yemeni state security court of appeals reduced the jail terms yesterday for several of 13 militants convicted of plotting to strike US interests and kidnap American citizens in Yemen.
Chief judge of the court, Saeed Al-Qattaa, said the court found the 13 people, aged between 20 and 40, guilty of conspiring to launch bombing attacks against US interests in the capital Sanaa and other main cities.
He said the alleged leader of the group, Ali Sufian Al-Ammari, 28, would serve six years in jail, down from a seven-year term he received by the lower court for his role in setting up the group and training its members.
The court upheld the six-year prison term for the group’s second-in-command, Muhammad Futaini, 24. The first instance court pronounced the initial verdict on April 19 last year.
Another group member, Muhammad Ali Haidar, 22, got his six-year prison term slashed to three years. Three other members of the group, convicted of preparing explosives to hit US targets, were sentenced to three years in jail, each down from five-year prison terms.
And two others, Hamid al-Manea, 31, and Sami Muhammad Al-Shaabi, would serve two years in prison down from the original four-year jail terms.
The court confirmed the initial three-year prison verdict against Ibrahim Al-Wasabi, 40, and Badr Ahmad Al-Hassani, 24, for planning to travel to Iraq to join insurgents fighting US forces.
Three other members of the group were ordered released for time served in detention before and during the trial.
Also confirmed by the court of appeals was the acquittal of the 14th defendant, Faisal Abdul Aziz Al-Ariqi, 30, who surrendered to the police with an explosive belt on his waist after he pulled out of an attempted suicide attack on an unidentified US target in Sanaa.
As the judge read out the verdict in the brief session, the defendants and their relatives shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Great). And the defendants started to pray on the floor of their holding cell.
The convicts had admitted during the proceedings that opened in February 2006 to preparing forged IDs, training themselves in the production of explosives, and using Internet instructions to make explosive belts in preparation for fighting in Iraq.
All the men pleaded not guilty to charges of having formed an armed gang with the intent of targeting US interests, but said they had agreed to prepare to join insurgents fighting US forces in Iraq, and that they had used booklets on making explosives taken from the Internet.
Prosecutors, however, said the men prepared weapons, grenades and explosives and surveyed hotels and restaurants frequented by Americans in Sanaa. According to court documents, police apprehended the group in June 2005.
