A judge in Yemen sentenced two men to death and four others to prison terms of up to 10 years for the deadly attack in 2000 against the warship USS Cole.
The convictions Wednesday are the first stemming from the water-borne suicide bombing that provided an early glimpse of the nature of Osama bin Laden’s global terrorism network.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi-born associate of bin Laden, and Jamal al-Badawi, a 35-year-old Yemeni, were sentenced to death for planning the attack that killed 17 American sailors on the destroyer.
Al-Nashiri, in custody at an undisclosed location outside the United States, was tried in absentia (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).
Law-enforcement officials have suggested that al-Nashiri, arrested in the United Arab Emirates and transferred into American hands in 2002, was the mastermind behind the Cole bombing on Oct. 12, 2000, and also played a key role in the bombings of U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
In the Cole attack, two men in a dinghy laden with explosives bashed into the side of the destroyer as it was refueling in the southern Yemeni port of Aden, killing the sailors and opening a gaping tear in the ship’s hull.
Cries of “God is Great!” erupted from the defendants when Judge Najib al-Qaderi read the sentences in a courthouse surrounded by armored vehicles and army snipers. Relatives in the packed courtroom yelled that the sentences were unjust, as did al-Badawi.
“These are American sentences!” yelled al-Badawi, after he heard his death sentence. “The judge and the entire Yemeni government are tools in the hands of the Americans!”
American observers in the courtroom did not comment about the case, and neither the U.S. Embassy in San`a nor the State Department returned telephone calls seeking the American reaction.
Lawyers who helped defend the men objected to the entire proceedings, noting that the men were judged by a court set up for the very purpose of trying terrorism suspects and therefore outside the country’s constitution.
“The procedures that took place completely breached the right to a fair defense,” Mohammed Naji Allaw, a defense lawyer who had previously withdrawn from the case to protest the proceedings, said in a telephone interview. To cite one example, he said, the men were tortured to extract confessions during their imprisonment.
All six defendants were found guilty of belonging to Al Qaeda. Fahd al-Qasa, who received a 10-year sentence, was supposed to film the bombing but overslept and missed the attack, the judge said. Al-Qasa underwent training in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan, and a video camera was discovered in the apartment he fled after the bombing.
Maamoun Msouh was sentenced to 8 years for helping al-Badawi by handling money and forging identity papers. The latter crime also led to 5-year terms for two former Interior Ministry employees, Ali Mohammed Saleh and Murad al-Sirouri.
Al-Badawi said he would appeal his sentence, and the five other defendants are also likely to seek to have the sentences overturned. They can take their cases to the Court of Appeals and eventually the Supreme Court. In addition, President Ali Abdullah Saleh must confirm all death sentences, which are carried out by firing squad.
In previous political cases the president has either annulled or lessened sentences and even pardoned some individuals, Allaw, the attorney, said, but he also noted that the president’s ability to dismiss judges prevents them from making independent decisions.
The death sentences imposed Wednesday, although among the first for violence linked to Al Qaeda, are not rare in Yemen. Last month the same special court sentenced 15 defendants to terms ranging from 3 years to death for various terrorism plots and attacks. Those imprisoned for 10 years included five Al Qaeda supporters for the 2002 bombing of the French supertanker Limburg in an attack similar to that on the Cole. The militant sentenced to death was convicted of fatally shooting a police officer at a checkpoint.
Yemen is bin Laden’s ancestral homeland and was considered a haven by members of Al Qaeda fleeing the U.S. fighting in Afghanistan after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
But the country has been trying to distance itself from a reputation for harboring terrorists by arresting hundreds of suspects and allowing steps like the United States’ use of a missile to assassinate an operative for Al Qaeda in 2002.
A Yemeni political analyst, Mohammed al-Sabri, said Wednesday’s verdicts did not mean the case was over, The Associated Press reported.
“This is not a criminal case but one of a political and strategic nature,” al-Sabri said, noting that al-Nashiri is held by the Americans and perhaps could face a U.S. trial.
But he suggested other people suspected of involvement in the Cole attack, including some under arrest, were not being tried because Yemeni leaders hoped to quiet talk about the case.
“Authorities want to get rid of a psychological and media burden,” he said.
