Yemen court sentences eight more Shiite rebels to death

Oct 31, 2009, 9:50 GMT

Sana'a, Yemen - A Yemeni state security court sentenced eight Shiite rebels to death and 12 to jail terms of up to 12 years in the latest of a series of trials involving dozens of rebels.

Two defendants were acquitted because of mental illness.

The verdicts raise to 34 the number of death sentences handed down by the court on Shiite rebels since July.

The men were found guilty of forming an armed group and taking up arms against authorities in Bani-Hushais district, some 30 kilometres north of the capital Sana'a last year.

Presiding Judge Radwan al-Namir said the men had tried to move the battlefield from the north-western province of Saada to the outskirts of Sana'a.

The defendants were among 190 insurgents captured by security forces during the clashes in Bani-Hushaish that broke out in May 2008 and went on for nearly three months.

Fighting between the army and the Shiite rebels has flared intermittently in Saada since mid-2004, leaving hundreds of soldiers and insurgents dead. The rebels belong to the Zaidi sect of Shiite Islam.

Government forces began a massive attack on the strongholds of the so-called Houthis in Saada on August 11, and authorities have vowed to continue until the rebels give up.

Hundreds of insurgents, troops and civilians have been killed during the past two months. Around 150,000 people were forced to leave their villages, according to estimates by the United Nations.

Authorities accuse the rebels of trying to reinstall the rule of Shiite imams, which was toppled by a republican revolution in northern Yemen in 1962.

Houthis say they are in revolt against government corruption and the Yemeni alliance with the United States.