By Ben Turner
Impunity Watch Reporter, Middle East
SANAA, Yemen – A Yemeni court sentenced 13 Zaydi Shiite rebels to up to 10 years in jail on Monday and another to death after convicting them of forming an armed group to attack the state and civilians. Fighting between the rebels and government forces have continued in Saada since 2004. Last month 15 people were killed by a bombing outside a mosque.
Jafar al-Murhabi was sentenced to death, but no reason has been given for the much tougher sentence he received compared to the other 13 men. The defendants were convicted of charges relating to plots to attack Yemeni troop transporters and government buildings, and contaminate water supplies to military bases.
Among those sentenced was journalist Abdel Karim al-Khaywani, editor of the opposition newspaper al-Shura. Khaywani was sentenced to six years but is appealing the conviction. Yemen’s union of journalists protested the sentence.
“The court sentence against Khaywani is harsh. We reject and condemn it, and it should be revoked,” said the head of the union, Nasr Taha Mostapha.
The sentence comes just days before an event in London at which Khaywani is in line to win a human rights media award.
For more information, please see:
BBC – Death Sentence for Yemen ‘Rebel’ – 9 June 2008
Reuters – Yemen Court Sentences 13 Rebels to Jail, 1 to Death – 9 June 2008
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CAMP PEDELTON, California – A US military jury acquitted Lt. Andrew Grayson of the charges that he helped cover up the killings of 24 unarmed Iraqi civilians in Haditha in 2005. Originally four officers and four enlisted Marines were charged with the murders. Three of the Marines and two of the officers have had their charges thrown out. Grayson was the first defendant to go to trial.
Only defendants Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich and Lt. Col. Jeffrey Chessani remain, without a single guilty verdicts or pleas handed down. The military judge at Wuterich’s preliminary hearing has written that he doubts a conviction is possible because of lack of forensic evidence and unreliable statements by witnesses. Chessani’s lawyers feel that if their client goes to trial, he too will be found not guilty.
With only two remaining defendants, not a single person has been found responsible for the deaths of the 24 Iraqi civilians.
For more information, please see:
BBC – Marine Cleared over Iraq Killings – 5 June 2008
LA Times – Haditha Case Dwindles with Innocent Verdict – 5 June 2008
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BAGHDAD, Iraq – A suicide car bomb exploded near an American patrol base on June 8, killing one US solider and wounding 20 other people. 18 of the wounded were American soldiers and two were Iraqi contractors.
Iraqi police said the car bomb targeted a U.S. patrol base in a mostly Sunni Arab residential area in Rashad, about 25 miles southwest of Kirkuk. The suicide attacker rammed his vehicle into blast walls outside the gates of the U.S. base, Qadir said.
According to an Associated Press tally, at least 4,094 members of the U.S. military have died in the Iraq war since it began in March 2003.
For more information, please see:
Associated Press – Iraq Suicide Blast Kills US Soldier, Wounds 18 – 8 June 2008
Reuters – Iraq Suicide Bomber Kills U.S. Soldier, Wounds 18 – 8 June 2008
