Yemen's Shia Houthis executed nine people from the historically marginalized region of Tihama in the western Hodeidah province, one of them a child, this Saturday over the alleged killing of a senior member of the terrorist militia in 2018, sources have said.
The militia executed Ali Al-Qawzi , Abdulmalik Hameed, Mohammed Hayj, Mohammed Al-Qawzi, Mohammed Noah, Ebrahim Aqel, Mohammed Almashkari, Muadh Abbas, and 17-year old Abdul-Aziz Mohammed Al-Aswad after accusing them of killing Saleh al-Sammad, the head of the militia's self-styled 'Supreme Political Council' Saleh al-Sammad who was reportedly killed in an Arab Coalition air raid in Hodeidah in April 2018.
The militants executed the nine in a public square and displayed the gruesome event in screens.
Extremists in military uniform held the accused's hands behind their backs and verbally assaulted them in their last moments. "Let me pray two Raka'a and make a phone call to my mother and father," the youngest of the accused reportedly told the militant tightly pressing him against his breast. "There is no prayer. We are going to make them riddle you with bullets now," the militant replied.
The crime drew wide outrage in the country as seen in social media. Lawyers said the trial in an outlawed court in Sana'a did not adhere to the standards of a fair trial and the accused did not have the opportunity to provide sufficient defense.
It is a scapegoating of innocent people rounded up from the streets to execute them for a militant known to have been killed by a drone of a foreign country," one lawyer said asking not to be identified only as A.E. "Houthis know who killed their top militant. It is an ambiguous scapegoating of very simple innocent Tihami," he said. "It is similar to Iran's execution of Sunnis in groups after groups."
The chairman of the upper house of the Yemeni parliament Ahmed bin Daghr addressed the Houthis in a tweet: "Your crime today has exceeded all the limits."