SANAA, 7 August 2007 — A Yemeni court yesterday set Nov. 7 as the date for delivering its verdict in the case of three dozen Yemenis accused of planning or carrying out attacks for Al-Qaeda.
During yesterday’s hearing in Sanaa, the prosecution demanded the maximum penalty — which would translate into 10 to 15 years in jail — for each of the 33 suspected militants.
They are accused of “forming an armed group with the aim of perpetrating criminal acts ... by attacking foreign residents in Yemen, the clients of a hotel ... and causing explosions targeting vital installations,” according to the charge sheet.
They had also “prepared explosives, booby-trapped cars and weapons” for other attacks, it added.
The prosecution says the group, accused of being members of the Yemeni branch of Al-Qaeda, launched an abortive twin attack in September 2006 on an oil refinery at Maarib, 170 km east of the capital Sanaa, and petrol storage tanks at the Dhabba terminal operated by the Canadian firm Nexen in southeastern Hadramut province.
The defense told the court, which handles cases affecting state security, that the defendants had been coerced into making false confessions.
“The prosecution has no evidence to prove its charges except the interrogation of the accused, who have denied (the accusations and said) that their confessions were extracted under duress and torture,” said defense lawyer Faez Al-Hujuri.
This made the confessions null and void, he added before the judge set Nov. 7 as the date of the ruling.
The defendants initially numbered 36, including six tried in absentia.
The six were among a group of 23 Al-Qaeda suspects who escaped from a Sanaa prison in February 2006. Three of the six have been killed in clashes with security forces while the three others remain at large, reducing to 33 the number currently on trial, including three in absentia.
The remaining prison escapees have in the meantime either given themselves up or were arrested or killed.
The three still at large are among the most wanted militants in the country. They include Jamal Ahmad Al-Badawi, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2000 bombing of the oil tanker USS Cole off the southern port of Aden and featured on the US list of most-wanted terrorists with a five-million-dollar bounty on his head.
The others are Kassem Al-Raimi and Nasser Al-Wehaishi. The Interior Ministry has accused the fugitives of masterminding a July 2 suicide bombing in Maarib which killed eight Spanish tourists and two local drivers.
