Inhumane Crime in a Private Jail [Archives:2000/17/Front Page]

In response to the brutal crime against seven citizens from Al-Sharq city, A’anis, governorate of Dhamar, committed by two Sheikhs from the area in which four of them died and some went mad, residents of Osab, Raymah and Jabal Al-Sharq sent an appeal to president Ali Abduallah Saleh requesting him to enhance the power of law and arrest sheikhs Nasser and Ali Al-Mikdad and hold them accountable for their crime.
The two sheikhs imprisoned on Tuesday 11 April 2000 the seven men in a container. Four of them had died of suffocation and hunger, another two gone stark mad and the last is still in the extensive care unit in the hospital. They noted that sheikh Al-Mikdad infamous actions are flagrant and outrageous violation of human rights that must not be tolerated.
Reports have mentioned that the sheikhs accused those seven persons of theft. They imprisoned them for three days in a tightly closed iron container in Jabal Al-Sharq district, Dhamar governorate. Consequently, three of them died of thirst and suffocation. The fourth died in the hospital. Two others went crazy and the last one is now in an intensive care unit in a hospital.
Prisoners had to get rid of their clothes due to intensive heat inside the container. They also had to urinate on each others’ hands and then drank it because of thirst.
Security forces of the governorate were able to arrest the private prison keeper. However, the two Sheikhs are still at large.
Sources from Dhamar told Yemen Times that the three dead men were: Mohammed Ali Al-Osabi, Ali, bin Ali Al-Osabi and Bin Domal from Raimah.
This inhumane incident has aroused a wide-range condemnation among the people who demanded the authority to arrest the sheikhs and present them before justice.
The death of these citizens reminds the Yemeni people of the private sheikhs’ jails of which some were destroyed in Al-Odain district, Ibb governorate. Moreover, an investigation committee was assigned at the time by the Parliament to inspect the case.
Reports show that the laxity of the authority in dealing with the sheikhs of Al-Odain through giving them financial compensations and renovating these jails has encouraged other sheikhs to take the law into their hands.
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