 Eight militants on trial in Yemen over alleged plots to blow up Western embassies in the Arab state had also planned to assassinate top government officials including the prime minister, prosecutors told a state security court yesterday. Chief Prosecutor Saeed Al-Aaqil told the court the suspects — five Yemenis, two Syrians and an Iraqi — planned to kill Prime Minister Abdul-Qader Ba-Jammal as well as the defense and interior ministers, the chairman of the intelligence services and a presidential adviser. He said the allegations were based on documents found in the personal computer of the prime suspect, Anwar Al-Jilani, a 20-year-old Iraqi. Aqal said the group planned to attack the headquarters of Yemen's intelligence services, the Parliament, state radio and television stations, the central bank and civil aviation offices. He said the eight suspects were members of an organization named Katakb Al-Tawhid.
| The word "Tawhid" always makes me think "Zarqawi." |
The other suspects are Mohammad Abdelwahhab Bakri, a 24-year-old Syrian, and his brother Ahmad, 22, as well as five Yemenis: Khaled Al-Batati, 23, Salah Othman, 33, Omran Al-Faqih, 31, Abderrahman Basira, 25, and Majed Mizan, 21. Defense attorney Abdel Aziz Samawi condemned the allegations in court yesterday, asserting that "the documents are fabricated by the representative of the public prosecutor".
Samawi called on the judge not to bow to "foreign intelligence services and the United States in an attempt to persuade them that we are combating terrorism." |