‘Tortured’ colonel dies after five years in Houthi jail
A Yemeni army colonel has died of brain injuries caused by torture during more than five years in the custody of Houthi rebels, his family has said.
Col Abdulmajid Aloos, 55, a former head of the Defence Ministry’s military innovations unit, was captured by the Houthis near his residence in the capital, Sanaa, in March 2016.
His lawyer appealed for his release after he was admitted to hospital in July last year with a brain haemorrhage.
His sister said he died in hospital on Wednesday without family members being allowed to see him.
“My brother died suffering brain haemorrhage. They refused to let us take him to die in his own home and when they saw him taking his last breath, they took him to the hospital where he died,” she told The National.
“I went with my mother to see him but they didn’t allow us into the intensive care unit at the hospital.
“Sadly, my father and mother still don’t know that he has passed away.
“We couldn’t tell them because we refused to go to the hospital to take his body – we insisted that we want a forensic examination of his body before his funeral.”
Col Aloos’s lawyer, Abdulmajid Sabra, said his client was tortured during interrogation and that the rebels denied his repeated requests to see a doctor before he was taken to Sanaa’s Al Jamhouri public hospital in July last year.
“His family went to see him in the hospital but they found him almost dead. He wasn’t able to talk to them any more,” Mr Sabra said at the time.
Mr Sabra said Col Aloos was sentenced to death by a Houthi court a year after his arrest for working with the Saudi-led Arab coalition, which is supporting the internationally recognised government’s fight against the Iran-backed rebels. The sentence was confirmed by another rebel court in December 2019, he said.
An association of mothers of Houthi prisoners condemned the rebels’ treatment of Col Aloos.
“Aloos was exposed to brutal torture while he was being questioned,” the Abductees’ Mothers’ Association said.
“We hold the Houthi group accountable for his death.”