SANAA
A Yemeni court on Tuesday sentenced two Al-Qaeda figures to four and 15 years in jail for assassinating a high-ranking military official in 2012, a local rights activist has said.
The court sentenced Sami Dayan and Farhan al-Sa'di – convicted of murdering Salem al-Qatan, head of the army's southern division, in June of 2012 – to 15 and four years in prison respectively, the activist, speaking anonymously, told Anadolu Agency.
The activist said that, despite an ongoing judges' strike, the presiding judge himself had delivered the verdict in a trial that has drawn considerable attention in the local media.
The two men were tried for plotting and carrying out al-Qatan's murder – with the use of a Somali suicide bomber – outside a hospital in the southern Aden province. Al-Qatan's driver and an escort, along with five pedestrians, were also killed in the operation.
Yemeni judges have staged a nationwide strike since March 26 to protest repeated attacks – as many as 37 have been reported – on judges, according to an earlier statement by Al-Garah Belaid, head of Yemen's Judges Club.
Some judges, Belaid asserted, had received threats after delivering judicial verdicts.
Al-Qaeda militants remain active in several parts of southern Yemen, from where they continue to stage sporadic attacks on army and police targets.
Yemen has been dogged by turmoil since pro-democracy protests in 2011 forced autocratic president Ali Abdullah Saleh to step down after 33 years in power.
In the three years since, authorities have struggled to restore law and order to the restive southern Arabian country.
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