Policemen tried for torturing suspect to death [Archives:2005/875/Local News]

5 Sept, Sana'a – YT: Three members of the Yemeni security forces have gone on trial in absentia, for torturing a terror suspect to death in the south of the country. The two policemen and one security officer are reported to be evading arrest. They are accused of torturing Wadih Shibani to death at a police detention centre in September 1997, while forcing him to confess to being involved in bombings in the Aden area in 1997. A Yemeni court started Monday the trial and the public prosecutor's office in Aden filed charges against the two police officers and security member of having tortured Wadih Shibani to death, however, the three men are reportedly on the run to avoid facing the charges.

The indictment indicated that the three interrogated Shibani at a police detention center in Aden in September 1997 and used force and physical torture to extract confessions leading to the suspect's death. The indictment was attached to the official report of the forensic doctor about the causes of Shibani's death. In its most recent annual report, the human rights organisation Amnesty International said they continued to receive reports of torture and ill treatment in Yemen. In June last year, 14 suspects on trial in connection with the bombing of the Limburg, a French oil tanker, in October 2002, said in court that they had been tortured by intelligence officers. One man shouted out in court that some of them had been given electric shocks. Amnesty says the court subsequently ordered an investigation into the allegations, but as of the end of 2004 there had been no further information on the inquiry.
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