Yemeni ‘journalist’ sentenced to death

DUBAI, April 13, (Agencies): A court in Yemen’s Houthi-controlled capital Sanaa has sentenced a veteran reporter to death for spying for the group’s main enemy Saudi Arabia, Houthi media and a journalists’ association have reported.

Yahya Abdulraqeeb Al-Jubaihi was accused of establishing contacts with the Saudi embassy in Sanaa and sending it reports that endangered Yemen on the military, economic and political levels, the Houthi-controlled Saba news agency reported.

Saba said Al-Jubaihi who was arrested on Sept. 2016, had received 4,500 Saudi riyals ($1,200) a month for his services since 2010.

The decision by the State Security court in the capital Sanaa was reported on late Wednesday by the Houthi-controlled Saba news agency and by the Yemen Journalists’ Syndicate (YJS), a body that represents journalists.

“YJS strongly condemns this unconstitutional and extralegal sentence that ... brought Yemen back to a totalitarian and despotic era, and caused terror and fear among journalists,” the organisation said in a statement sent to Reuters.

Yemen is ranked 170th out of 180 countries in the 2016 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index. The group called on Wednesday for the release of 10 other journalists held by the Houthis for almost two years.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf Arab allies have carried out thousands of bombing raids in Yemen since March 2015 in a campaign to try to restore the ousted government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The Houthis, close to Saudi Arabia’s arch-enemy Iran, have progressively lost territory to the offensive but maintain control over the capital and most

population centres.

The rebels and their allies — renegade troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh — have controlled all government institutions in Sanaa since they overran the capital in September 2014. Rival bodies loyal to internationally recognised president Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi operate out of second city Aden or from exile in Saudi Arabia.

The Aden-based information ministry said Jubaihi’s trial was a “farce” and accused the rebels of looking to “settle political accounts... through a politicised judiciary.”

Jubaihi wrote regular columns in Saudi dailies Okaz and Al-Madina, as well as in Yemeni newspapers.

He served at the government’s press department in the 1990s and 2000s when Saleh was president and Hadi was his deputy.

Press watchdogs and human rights groups have been deeply critical of the rebels’ treatment of journalists as the conflict in the Arabian peninsula country has escalated over the past two years.

In December, journalist Mohammed al-Absi, 35, died suddenly after publishing reports about alleged corruption.