Yemen - Prosecutor Urges Death Penalty for Murder of Jew

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Yemen - Prosecutor Urges Death Penalty for Murder of Jew

Published on: February 16th, 2009 at 02:13 PM
News Source: AFP




Aziz Yahya al-Abdi shouts during his second court hearing (Photo credit AFP)
Yemen - The prosecution demanded the death sentence today for the Yemeni Muslim who has boasted of killing a Jewish compatriot north of the capital Sanaa late last year.



The court set March 2 as the date for its verdict against Abdul Aziz Yahya al-Abdi, 39, who admitted in December to shooting dead Masha Yaeish al-Nahari in the town of Raydah in Amran province.



Abdi, peering from the dock into the court through an iron gate, showed no remorse for his actions and repeatedly interrupted the prosecutor during the hearing to renew his confession.



The former air force pilot has repeatedly said he carried out the murder after warning Yemeni Jews that he would kill them unless they converted to Islam.



"I told them in a letter that they should either convert to Islam or leave Yemen, or I would kill them," he said at an earlier hearing.



The small courtroom was packed with several dozen other members of Abdi's Kharef tribe, many wearing a traditional jambiya or curved dagger on their belts.


Many were relatives of Abdi who had come to support him and they laughed wholeheartedly at his often incoherent remarks.



The only Jewish people present were the victim's father and widow -- also the only woman in the courtroom.



Other members of the region's small Jewish community attended two earlier hearings but stayed away today because of threats by Abdi's supporters, Yahya Yaish, an elder of the community, said.



"I am not mad," the accused man shouted, even as his four lawyers sought to show that he was not responsible for Nahari's death because of his state of mind.



Abdi, who demanded the death penalty in compliance with Sharia law, killed his wife five years ago but escaped prison when he was ruled to be of unsound mind.



Nahari's father said Abdi accosted his son, with whom he was not acquainted, near the victim's home and insisted that he convert to Islam.



Nahari, who taught Hebrew in one of Raydah's two Jewish schools and had nine children of his own, asked to be left alone but Abdi then opened fire with a submachine gun until he was riddled with bullets, the bereaved father said.



Some 250 of Yemen's remaining Jewish minority of around 400 live in Amran.





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