 |
|
Kamel
said he should have been tried by an Islamic court and not a civil
court
|
SANAA,
May 10 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - A Yemeni was sentenced
to death by a court in the southern city of Ibb Saturday, May 10, for
the murder of three U.S. missionaries last December in the nearby town
of Jibla, court officials said.
Abed
Abdulrazzak al-Kamel, also convicted of wounding a fourth missionary,
has 15 days to appeal the verdict from the court of first instance in
Ibb, a provincial capital 220 kilometers (140 miles) south of Sanaa,
reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
He
was arrested immediately after the shooting of the Americans, the
first major anti-U.S. attack in Yemen since the October 2000 assault
on the USS Cole in the southern port of Aden that left 17 American
sailors dead.
Police
told the trial that Kamel, 30, had confessed to being a member of an
Islamic cell and that the missionaries deserved to die because they
had tried to convert Muslims to Christianity.
Prosecutors
demanded that Kamel, an Islamic activist, be given the death penalty,
as he was charged with premeditated murder.
The
three missionaries were shot dead in a Baptist hospital in Jibla on
December 30 where they had worked for many years.
The
U.S. Embassy in Sanaa expressed outrage at the killings and demanded
that the culprits be punished.
"We
condemn the attack on U.S. citizens ... We call upon on the Yemeni
government to bring those responsible to justice," the embassy
said on the day of the attack.
Yemen
is the ancestral homeland of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and the
United States has deployed troops to the impoverished Arabian
Peninsula republic to train the security forces in counter terrorism.
The
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency also intervened directly in Yemen
last November, killing
suspected al-Qaeda leader Ali Qaed Sunian al-Harithi and five
companions in a missile attack from a drone launched with the
government's blessing.
Washington
has established the headquarters of an 800-strong counter terrorism
force at a former French base in Djibouti just across the strategic
Bab al-Mandab seaway.
“Against
Islamic Law”
Kamel
condemned the verdict, saying he should have been tried by an Islamic
court and not a civil court.
His
lawyer said he would appeal against the sentence, which is usually
enforced by firing squad.
U.S.
Baptists have run Jibla hospital since the 1960s.
"The
ruling is a political one and violates Islamic Sharia law," Kamel
told the court in Ebb province, according to the BBC online news
service.
Kamel
was a student at Yemen's al-Iman university - which was briefly closed
last year after allegations that it was a hotbed of “Islamic
militancy”.
After
the killing President Ali Abdullah Saleh sent a message of condolence
to his U.S. counterpart George W Bush, expressing shock and outrage at
the attack on people who were working to help Yemenis.
