Death row prisoner pardoned

SANA’A: Yemen’s Houthi rebels announced on Wednesday they had pardoned a Baha’i sentenced to death over his religion and ordered the release of more than 20 other members of the minority imprisoned in the capital Sana’a.

The Baha’i International Community said on Monday that a rebel-run appeals court had upheld the death sentence of Hamed bin Haydara, detained since 2013, despite international appeals.

It said it was “utterly dismayed at this outrageous verdict”, reached at a Sunday hearing, which Haydara had not been allowed to attend.

But on Wednesday, Mehdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthis’ political wing, said in a statement tweeted by the Al-Masirah news channel: “We order the release of all Baha’i prisoners and announce the pardon and release of Hamed bin Haydara.”

Rights groups have voiced alarm over the Houthi rebels’ treatment of Yemen’s small Baha’i community.

Haydara has spent months in prison, where he suffered beatings and electric shocks, according to the community.

Houthi courts have started prosecution of more than 20 Baha’is and called for the dissolution of the faith’s institutions in Yemen.