Yemen: 2 al-Qaida militants sentenced to death over attacks on police and army
By APWednesday, July 7, 2010
Yemeni court sentences 2 al-Qaida members to death
SAN’A, Yemen — A Yemeni court on Wednesday convicted two al-Qaida militants for the killing of senior police and army officers and sentenced them to death.
The swift trial, held in the capital San’a, took place without attorneys for the defendants.
Dressed in dark prison T-shirts and pants, 23-year-old Mubarak el-Shabawni and 18-year-old Mansour Salem, denounced the verdict and shouted ‘God is Great’ afterward.
Arrested in December, the two were charged with carrying out attacks in 2009, including one that claimed the lives of top Yemeni intelligence officials in the south.
Yemen, the ancestral homeland of Osama bin Laden, has strong al-Qaida presence, which the government has struggled to confront.
U.S. officials say insurgents, including Americans, are training in militant camps in Yemen’s vast lawless spaces and allying with powerful tribes opposed to the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
Yemen’s al-Qaida affiliate got a boost in 2009, when the organization merged with the Saudi branch and dramatically increased the pace of its attacks.
