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| Arabia |
| Iraqis deny terror charges in Yemen |
| 2005-08-14 |
| Ex-Iraqi officers Sunday denied accusations of plotting to attack the U.S. and British embassies in Yemen as their defense called the charges "invalid." The defense attorney for the four Iraqis, Abdul Aziz Samawi, told the Yemeni State Security Court the prosecution extracted the defendants' confessions through at the intelligence prison, where they were held for more than two years. He said "the prosecution evidence is therefore null and void." The Iraqis, allegedly intelligence officers in the toppled regime of Saddam Hussein, were charged with coming into the country disguised as school teachers and planning to carry out terrorist attacks in the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, against the Western embassies. The defendants claimed their signed confessions were taken after "physical and psychological torture," and one of them said he tried to commit suicide more than once to escape the abuse. The prosecutor Sunday said he will prove one of the four men, Sami Nouh, was "in charge of a cell" in Sanaa planning to strike Western interests in Yemen and Saudi Arabia. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |