Yemen Jails Six Al-Qaeda Men for Plotting Attacks
Khaled Al-Mahdi, Arab News
SANAA, 9 August 2005 — A Yemeni court yesterday sentenced six men, including an Iraqi and two Syrians, to jail terms ranging from two to four years after convicting them of planning to attack Western embassies.
The six men were part of an eight-member Al-Qaeda cell called the “Tawheed Brigades”. Two other defendants were acquitted due to insufficient evidence.
The eight were charged with planning to attack the British and Italian embassies and a French cultural center in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
The court sentenced the alleged ringleader Anwar Baian Al-Jilani to four years in prison. Two Yemeni accomplices, Khaled Muhammad Al-Butani and Abdul Rahman Basurra were given 38 and 40 months in jail, respectively. A third Yemeni Umran Al-Faqih was sentenced to two-year suspended prison term.
Two Syrian brothers, Muhammad and Ahmad Abdul Wahab Khiti, received 38-month jail term each. The verdict, read out by the court’s presiding Judge Najeeb Al-Qadri, said that “the evidence supported charges (against the six convicts) and showed organized preparations to carry out bombings targeting foreign diplomatic missions.”
Qadri found two Yemenis Majid Mizan and Salah Muhammad Othman innocent, saying the prosecution failed to provide sufficient evidence against them.
Prosecutors have submitted to the court documents seized by police showing that the group had also planned to attack military bases in Saudi Arabia, as well as American civilians, Western companies, restaurants and schools in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Among the documents were maps and alleged attack plans and orders for explosives and rocket-propelled grenades that would have been allegedly supplied by Saudi comrades. When the trial began on March 21, only three of the defendants pleaded guilty for planning to attack on the British Embassy, but they and the other five suspects denied involvement in a conspiracy to blow up the Italian embassy or the French center.
http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4§ion=0&article=68194&d=9&m=8&y=2005
By Mubasher Bukhari
9/8/05
LAHORE: Osama Bin Yousaf, arrested from Faisalabad on Sunday, is said to be an important Al Qaeda operative, a close aide of Abu Faraj Al Libby and Amjad Hussain Farooqi and was in contact with other Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and Europe, intelligence officials told Daily Times on Monday.
“Bin Yousaf confessed to being part of the Al Qaeda network and to have provided logistic support to militants,” officials added. His cell phone numbers were found in Al Libby’s telephone index after which American and Pakistani intelligence agencies put him on their watch list, intelligence officials said, adding that he was arrested after the Cellular Call Tracking System (CCTS) that was installed in several locations countrywide phone calls made by him to Italy, Germany and the UK. “He called someone in the UK on Thursday, called someone else in Italy on Friday and made two long phone calls to somebody in Germany on Saturday,” officials said.
He would put his cell phone off after making calls due to which intelligence agencies could not trace his exact location, officials added. However, the CCTS traced his location while he was calling overseas after which a team arrived in Faisalabad to hunt him down, they said. “He made a phone call to Peshawar on Sunday and was arrested after that. Law enforcement agents were onto him as soon as he finished his call,” officials added.
He told his interrogators that he went to Afghanistan in 1992 and got guerrilla training, officials said, adding that he was injured combating rivals in Afghanistan in 1993 and returned to Pakistan. He again went to Afghanistan in 1995 where he was introduced to Al Qaeda leaders, officials added. Maps of Italy, Germany, Pakistan and the UK, three credits cards, a computer, dozens of CDs, three grenades, two AK-47s and hundreds of bullets were seized from his possession, officials added.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-8-2005_pg7_3