Sultan Assamie Back to Political Life [Archives:2000/06/Front Page]

Taiz- Politician Sultan Assamie has returned to political life again, following a 7-year compulsory exile in his home town Samie, Taiz Governorate.
Sultan Assamie was accused of being involved, along with his bodyguards in killing two soldiers from Anis, a district and tribe in Dhamar Governorate, in 1993 in clashes that happened between his bodyguards and some military men in Taiz Governorate. Two weeks ago a verdict was passed stipulating that Sultan Assamie must pay blood money amounting to YR 15.4 million. Before that incident, Assamie had won a seat in the Parliament in the parliamentary elections of 1993 and actively participated as one of the prominent social figures, who had established the Mass Conference in Taiz governorate in 1993 in order to present to political leadership the Governorate’s demands for attention to its conditions.
During the transitional period after unification, Assamie was Editor- in Chief of Al-Hadath, a vocal independent weekly newspaper that was popular at the time. He had run for a seat in the parliamentary elections in 1997 but was rejected for being charged of the murder offense that was not decided on then.
Yemen Times Taiz Bureau chief Imad Al-Saqqaf interviewed Mr Assamie in Taiz, asking him on the tribal sentence against him and his relationship with power centers and various current events.
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