Review of the fifth periodic report of Yemen

1.10.3Unfair trials Before the Special Criminal Court

Following are few examples of cases of unfair trails brought before SCC which Alkarama has received in recent years.

On 26 January 2010, Sana'a's SCC ruled against Mohamed Qasim Ali Al-Ghouli and Amin Al-Naggar¹³⁴, two cases which Alkarama had previously submitted to the UN special procedures. The court handed out sentences of ten years for Mr Al-Ghouli and seven years for Al-Naggar. Both Mohamed Al-Ghouli and Amin Al-Naggar were among a group of seven individuals accused and tried for belonging to Al-Qaida. They have always denied the charges. Following arbitrary arrests and detention, all of which were devoid of any judicial authority or relevant proceedings, the trial was conclusively considered as unfair by local lawyers and human rights activists, who criticize the Court for its lack of independence and inability to meet the criteria of a fair trial. In this specific case, Mohamed Al-Ghouli was denied legal representation not only during the first three hearings of his trial, but also during interrogations prior to his trial, following arbitrary arrest, disappearance and detention.

This year, on 18 January 2011, the same SCC sentenced Yemeni journalist and media figure, Abdul Ilah Haydar Sha'i¹³⁵, to five years in prison, for allegedly collaborating with Al-Qaida. Sha’i, who is known to have exposed a massacre caused by an American bombing raid, which killed dozens of civilian in late 2009, was arrested by Yemeni police for the first time on 11 July 2010 in Sana’a ¹³⁶, and later released after six hours of questioning. He was then arrested another time at his home on 16 August 2010 and was detained in a secret National Security detention center in Sana’a¹³⁷, disappeared for 35 days, before being transferred to a Political Security detention centre. According to his lawyers, he bore the marks of torture on his chest and other parts of his body and one of his teeth was broken. During his first hearing at the SCC, Mr Sha'i asked the court to investigate his complaints with regard to the human rights violations carried out against him. The court refused to do so, prompting the defence team to withdraw.

On 17 January 2010, Yasser Al-Wazir was sentenced to 8 years imprisonment by the SCC in Sana'a.¹³⁸ Alkarama had previously submitted his case as an urgent appeal to the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders on 20 November 2009.¹³⁹ Mr Al-Wazir is a member of the Yemeni Organisation for the Defense of Human Rights and Democratic Freedoms and campaigned regularly for the protection of the rights of detainees in Yemen, particularly those related to the conflict in Sa'ada. His trial was indisputably unfair: prior to his trial Mr Al-Wazir was held incommunicado for three months and suffered torture and ill-treatment at the hands of State Security, and spent long stretches of time in solitary confinement during this period. Al-Wazir remained detained without charge until the authorities referred him to trial on trumped-up charges, including charges of forming an armed group, although Al-Wazir was never questioned about this accusation during the entire period of his detention. His trial was conducted in semi-secret conditions, in camera, and Al-Wazir was not informed about the trial dates of the hearings. A lawyer appointed by Al-Wazir's family was forced to abandon the cause later, in protest at the lack of basic guarantees of a fair trial.

On 7 November 2007 Abdul Rahman Al-Hossami was sentenced by Sana’a’s SCC to two and a half years in prison, starting from the date of his arrest. During the proceedings of his trial, the SCC used confessions extracted under duress and torture. He was released only after having served six months over and beyond his prison sentence.¹⁴⁰