al-Qaeda not guilty
SANAA, June 18 (AFP) –
An appeals court in Sanaa found 11 al-Qaeda suspects innocent of charges of attempts to carry out attacks in Yemen and abroad for lack of evidence, judicial sources said.
The court declared the 11 men innocent of the charges of forming an armed group to carry out attacks in Yemen and abroad in the trial, which resumed on opened April 26 after opening two months earlier.
The judge ordered the release of all but one of them, Saddam Hussein al-Husami, who still had to serve five months in prison for a previous two-year sentence for forgery.
Among those released, three of them were cleared of all charges and the remaining seven had already completed jail sentences for forgery.
The defendants were all Yemenis but at least six of them were born in Saudi Arabia. The charges against them included possession of arms and explosives, and forging documents and passports.
The prosecution had alleged the 11 had trained in camps in Afghanistan between 1998 and 2002, and plotted and raised funds for “criminal acts.” It also charged they had planned to travel to Iraq to fight US-led forces.
Yemen has at Washington’s behest cracked down on suspected Al-Qaeda militants since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, trying many suspects.
