A court of the Houthi militia in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, sentenced 11 MPs to death by gunfire in Tahrir Square in central Sana’a.
They were accused of intelligence and participation in a meeting of the House of Representatives held in the city of Seiyun, in Hadramawt governorate in April 2019.
“The specialized criminal court in Sana’a under Houthis, headed by Mohammad Mufallah, sentenced, Tuesday Feb.9, 11 members of the House of Representatives with death,” this is what the head of the Defense of Prisoners and Disappeared Persons Department, lawyer Abdul Basit Ghazi, have written in his page on Facebook.
The verdict ruled that the execution be carried out in Tahrir Square in front of the House of Representatives in Sana’a, and that they were sentenced due to their participation in the parliament meeting in Seiyun, in which a new Presidency of the Council was elected according to Ghazi
The Houthi court also decided to confiscate all the property of the deputies sentenced at home and abroad, and to transfer them to the state treasury in Sana’a.
The list of those convicted by the Houthi court includes the following Representatives: Hamid Al-Ahmar, Insaf Mayo, Bakil Naji Al-Sufi, Zaid Al-Shami, Saeed Mubarak Doman, Ali Ashal, Ali Muhammad Al-Maamari, Ghalib Al-Qurashi, Muhammad Rashad Al-Alimi, Naguib Saeed Ghanem, and Ahmed Abbas Al-Nahari.
It is worth noting that in March of last year, the same Houthi court decided to execute 35 deputies, for the same charges of intelligence and of supporting the Arab coalition forces, led by Saudi Arabia.
“Internationally recognized government does not recognize any powers of this court, and thus what was issued from it has no value and is not worth the ink it was written with because it is outside the jurisdiction of the judiciary.” According to what the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Justice in the Yemeni government Faisal Al Majeedi said.
“The Supreme Judicial Council had previously approved, in its periodic meeting on April 30, 2018, to transfer the jurisdiction of the Public Prosecution Office, the Criminal Court, and the Court of Appeal from the Sana’a region to Marib,” as Al-Majeedi explained.
It is noteworthy that human rights organizations revealed earlier, that the courts under the control of the Houthi militia have issued more than 200 death sentences since 2017 against political and civil opponents, including four journalists in cases of a political nature,
International human rights reports have repeatedly accused the Houthis of using the judiciary in their areas of control to settle political scores against anyone who opposes or stands in the way of their Iranian-backed project.
