SANAA, 15 July 2004 — The trial of six Yemenis charged with the October 2000 bombing of the US navy destroyer USS Cole was adjourned by a Yemeni court yesterday until July 21.
The court, chaired by Judge Najeeb Al-Qaderi, adjourned the trial to allow three lawyers standing for the six defendants to meet their clients and review their files.
The trial opened on July 7 with five suspects appearing before the court. The alleged mastermind of the attack, Abdul Raheem Al-Nashri, who is in US custody, is being tried in absentia.
Al-Nashri, alias Mulla Bilal, was arrested in the United Arab Emirates in November 2002 and handed over to US authorities. He was described at the time as Al-Qaeda’s chief of operations in the Arabian Gulf. Yemen has asked the US to extradite him to stand trial.
Prosecutors said two suicide bombers, identified as Ibrahim Al-Thour, alias Al-Nibras, and Hassan Al-Khamri, carried out the attack on Oct. 12, 2000. The two men allegedly sailed a dinghy laden with more than 200 kg of high explosives and rammed it into the US destroyer as it stopped at Aden port for refueling.
The powerful explosion punched a big hole in the hull of the destroyer, killing 17 US sailors and injuring 33 others.
The six defendants include Jamal Muhammad Al-Badawi, alias Abu Abdur Rahman, 39, Fahd Muhammad Al-Qasaa, also known as Abu-Houzifa, 30, Maamoun Ahmad Onswa, alias Mutaz, 30, and police officers Ali Muhammad Al-Muraqib, 30, and Murad Salih Al-Sorwri, 27. They were charged with providing the other suspects with forged ID documents.
The six men are accused of carrying out terrorist acts, endangering state security and stability, and harming the country’s interests. Conviction on those charges would carry sentences from 10 years in prison to executions.
Two years after the Cole bombing, a similar attack targeted the French oil supertanker, Limburg, off Yemen’s southeastern coast. One Bulgarian crew member was killed in the attack.
A Sanaa court charged five suspects in May with the Limburg bombing in which a small boat loaded with more than 1,200 kg of TNT and 20 kg of C-4 explosives was used to blow up the vessel at Al-Dhabba port.
Senior Judge Grilled
A senior Yemeni judge is being investigated for his alleged support for a rebel preacher whose supporters are locked in battle with the army in the north, a judicial source told AFP.
Muhammad Luqman, who heads a court in the western Haraz region, has been interrogated since Saturday when the Supreme Council of Justice lifted his immunity, the source told the news agency.
The council accuses Luqman of being a “supporter of preacher Hussein Badruddin Al-Houthi.”
Al-Houthi’s supporters have been fighting the Yemeni Army since June 18, leaving some 200 dead on both sides, according to an unofficial toll.
