Yemeni demonstrators demand trial for ex-president Saleh

Dec 15, 2011, 11:43 GMT

Sana'a - Thousands of people in Yemen called on former president Ali Abdullah Saleh and other regime officials to be prosecuted for ordering violence against pro-democracy protests.

Demonstrators in the capital Sana'a and the southern city of Taiz chanted slogans against a Gulf-brokered power transfer deal last month that granted Saleh immunity from legal prosecution in return for stepping down.

The deal was signed by Saleh and opposition leaders in Saudi Arabia, which had pushed for the UN-backed deal to try to prevent its impoverished neighbour from sliding toward a civil war.

'What the political parties have agreed on falls short of our expectations,' said Masoud al-Harazi, a protester in Sana'a. 'We will continue our peaceful struggle to uproot all corrupt officials and criminals from our country.'

The protesters called on the United Nations Security Council to take immediate action to bring to justice those implicated in ordering a deadly crackdown on Saleh's opponents.

'Many women have been killed by Saleh's forces in the past months. This is a shame. We will not stop until the killer is jailed,' said Ilham Mohammed, a female protester from Sana'a.