Defendant demands trial of socialist leadersYSP discloses link between terrorists and influential officials in Jarallah’s assassination [Archives:2003/651/Front Page]

The Court of North Sana'a decided Sunday that the verdict against the suspect assassin of Jarallah Omar, the socialist leader, and members of the suspect's gang, would be passed on September 14th while the Socialist Party denounced this step taken by the court, appealing that investigation into the case should reveal the political motives behind the assassin and his group.
In its hearing last Sunday, the Judge of the court, Abdulrahman Jahaf refused the appeal made the advocates of the family of Jarallah Omar to return the case to the prosecution for further investigations. During the session, attended by some socialist and opposition leaders, including the YSP Secretary General, Ali Saleh Obad as well as some intellectuals and writers whose names were mentioned in the list of targets of Ali Jarallah and his team, the team of advocates asked the defendant some questions related to the incident, finance and the people he met before assassinating Omar. The suspected assassin confessed before the court of his crime and said he did that because Omar and the other targets were secular people who do not recognize Islam as a religion. He also said that he met some people like Dr. Ahmad al-Daghshi who was arrested but later released. He refused to answer other questions.
In a written paper which he read out before the court, Ali Jarallah said that the other detained suspects have no link to his plan for murdering what he described as “secular politicians and writers, missionaries and member of the al-Buhrah religious sect.” He said he deceived them by telling them that he could facilitate their travel to Chechnya and Palestine to perform Jihad, pointing out that they had no idea about the messages which he sent to them. He said that he did not plan to create an organization to carry out his ideas , rather he recorded a tape in which he explained his ideas of the necessity that such people should be killed. He denied that he received finance for such operations and assassination of Omar from Sheikh Abdulmajeed al-Zindani and Mohammed al-Anisi, both of them are leading members of the Islah party and said that he admitted their involvement in the plan because he was beaten up at the intelligence prison. He made it clear that he meant in the beginning to make government officials, including the president, as targets of his operations as they protect such missionaries, seculars and infidels. But he said he excluded the president and top officials as this might have been exploited by the socialist party.
The defendant demanded in a cynical tone that leaders of the socialist, Nasserite and Ba'ath parties to be tried for their infidelity till they repent.
The socialist party accused some influential figures including clerics of cooperating with the terrorist group of Ali Jarallah to assassin Omar and other leaders of the socialist and some luminaries. In a statement issued Tuesday, the YSP demanded that the religious fatwa passed during the civil war of 1994 against the socialists should be abolished and that springs of extremism and terrorism should be dried up. The YSP warned against the attempts made to marginalize the political dimension of the crime, pointing out that investigating the criminal aspect would encourage the terrorists to carry out their plan. It said that if the accomplices of the assassin are not disclosed, this means that such terrorists are provided with the necessary protection. It demanded that those accomplices should be brought to justice despite their position.
The socialist party appealed to international and Arab human rights organizations and activists to exercise more pressure on the Yemeni authorities not to go ahead with the case and conduct further investigations into the assassination, dealing with the case as a political crime. It also called for a solidarity campaign with its leaders and other politicians, intellectuals, and writers whose lives are still at risk. These figures complained to the prosecution that their lives are threatened and that they should be given enough protection.
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