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Four Yemenis Jailed For British Embassy Blast
SANAA, July 22 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A Sanaa court Sunday sentenced four Yemenis to between four and 15 years in prison for an October 2000 attack on the British embassy in the Yemeni capital, news agencies reported.
A special tribunal set up in Sanaa to try "terrorism and kidnapping" cases sentenced Abu Bakr Said Ahmad Jaiul, 38, and Ahmad Massud Ali Mosharaf, 23, to 15 years each, the French news agency AFP reported.
Sallam Salem Abu Jahel, 31, received six years, while 19-year-old Fares Saleh Taher was sentenced to four years.
Presiding judge Hussein Alwan found the four Yemenis guilty of having "carried out criminal acts aimed at harming the security of the country, hurting others and their property."
During the trial, the prosecution had called for the maximum penalty, without specifically asking for the death sentence or life imprisonment for the four accused.
The court also ordered that Mosharaf be handed over to the prosecutor general to investigate his role in the bombing of the house of a former interior minister in January.
Additionally, the court ordered the four to pay compensation to the embassy and residents of neighboring houses for damage caused by the blast. The amount of compensation has not yet been determined.
According to BBC's online service, the British embassy blast on October 18th came a day after 17 U.S. sailors were killed in an apparent suicide bomb attack on the American warship, the USS Cole, in the port of Aden.
Three of the defendants - Jaiul, Mosharaf and Jahel - had demanded "justice and fairness" on the grounds that the TNT attack on the embassy was in retaliation for Israeli violence against the Palestinians. The four said they would appeal the verdicts.
All four defendants were expected to be transferred to the southern port city of Aden to face charges of taking part in bomb attacks on a church, a hotel and the official news agency SABA there last New Year's Eve.
No injuries were reported from any of the blasts in Aden or in Sanaa, where a generator was destroyed and windows blown out at the embassy.
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