SANAA: A Yemeni court on Saturday sentenced to death eight men involved in a rebellion. They were arrested last year for fighting government troops north of the country’s capital.
Another court meanwhile handed out jail sentences and writing bans to two journalists for defaming the president.
Seven rebels received prison sentences of 12 years, three three-year sentences, one an eight-year sentence and one a five-year sentence. Two were found not guilty.
The Houthi rebels were arrested last year for fighting troops for around a month at Bani Husheish, 30 km north of Sanaa. Houthi rebels first took up arms against President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s rule in 2004, citing political and economic marginalization by the government.
But the conflict intensified in August when the army unleashed Operation Scorched Earth. Aid groups, who have been given limited access to the northern provinces, say up to 150,000 people have fled their homes since 2004.
On Tuesday the court, in a separate trial, sentenced to death four men, while 11 were jailed for up to 15 years and one was released after having served his sentence.
On Monday, a court opened proceedings in absentia against Yahya Al-Houthi, the brother of the rebels’ leader, who is now based in Germany.
Saleh also faces a separatist movement in the south of the country.
In the journalists’ case, Samir Jubran, editor in chief of the weekly Al-Masdar newspaper, was given a one-year’s suspended prison sentence and was banned from writing for the duration.
The second journalist, Mounir Al-Mawri, who also works for the paper and was the author of the defamatory article published in May, was sentenced in absentia and given a two-year prison sentence and banned from writing for life.
