A Yemeni court on Monday rejected an appeal by a suspected al-Qaeda militant sentenced to death for killing three US missionaries. Abed Abdul Rezak Kamel, 30, was convicted in May over the Dec 30 slayings at a Southern Baptist missionary hospital in Jibla, southern Yemen. The court found Kamel shot to death hospital director William E. Koehn, 60, of Kansas; purchasing agent Kathleen A. Gariety, 53, of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin.; and Dr Martha C. Myers, 57, of Motgomery, Alabama. A fourth missionary, pharmacist Donald W. Caswell, 49, of Levelland, Texas, was wounded. Monday's court hearing rejected the appeal filed by Kamel, who claimed the conviction and sentence violated Islamic law. Kamel claimed he killed the missionaries because he believed they were converting Muslims to Christianity and that the hospital was sterilizing local women.
| Well, of course. Either offense would call for a death sentence, to be carried out by anyone who felt like it at any time. That's reasonable, if you own a turban... |
|