Execution
Arab News: A Yemeni preacher convicted of murdering a top opposition politician in December 2002 was executed in Sanaa yesterday, prison officials said.Ali Ahmad Jarallah, 28, was executed by firing squad at the central prison in the capital Sanaa, they told Arab News. “A police officer shot four fatal shots from a Kalashnikov rifle into Jarallah’s back,” one official said.
A Yemeni court sentenced Jarallah in September 2003 to death for shooting dead Jarallah Omar, the assistant secretary-general of the Yemeni Socialist Party. The sentence was upheld by an appeals court and President Ali Abdullah Saleh affirmed the verdict last week.
Jarallah, a prayer leader at a mosque in the city, shot Omar several times at close range during a congress for Al-Islah party in Sanaa on Dec. 28, 2002. He was arrested on the spot.
Jarallah told the primary court that he killed Omar because of his stance against the Shariah. “I killed a man who fought against God’s law,” he shouted after the verdict was announced on Sept. 14, 2003.
In a statement last week, the lawyer for the murder victim’s family objected to the sentence being carried out until further investigations were made into his accomplices. Amnesty International has objected to the narrow scope of the investigation saying a broader investigation should be carried out to exclude the possibility of collaboration with some leading figures. But now that the main perpetrator is dead, it will be a little more difficult.
NY: Al-Mikhlafi, who also heads the legal department of the YSP, Said the Supreme Court’s decision comes in agreement with the approach of the authorities, right from the moment of Omar’s assassination. “This was a move to hide the truth and conceal the real political motives behind the crime, which everyone knows is a political assassination. It is clear that this resembles a deliberate attempt to protect the organization that is behind this crime.” He added.
