33 verdict due November
No evidence, defense says. This is related to the thwarted attacks on the oil facilities nearly a year ago.
SANAA: A Yemeni court yesterday set November 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 Marib, 170km east of the capital Sanaa, and petrol storage tanks at the Dhabba terminal operated by the Canadian firm Nexen in southeastern Hadramut province.
The defence 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 defence lawyer Faez al-Hujuri.
This made the confessions null and void, he added before the judge set November 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. – AFP
