His Excellency Abd Rabu Mansur Hadi
President
Republic of Yemen
Your Excellency President Hadi,
We write to express our concern about the continued unlawful detention of Adel Yahya Said al-Khawlani by the Political Security Organization in its prison in Hadda, despite the September 15, 2013 order from the Sanaa Specialized Criminal Court to release him. The court found him guilty of affiliation with Al-Qaeda and conspiring to carry out criminal acts on its behalf, but ruled that he had already served sufficient time in prison. Al-Khawlani said he was innocent of the charges, and had confessed to involvement only as a result of torture during his interrogation.
Al-Khawlani, 29, a travel agency manager from Dhamar who was living in Sanaa, was arrested on January 4 2013, at Kuhaza Checkpoint manned by Special Security Forces (formerly known as Central Security Forces) around 20 kilometers south of Sanaa, on the main road into the city while traveling from Rada`a to Sanaa, according to the written decision of the Sanaa Specialized Criminal Court.
Plainclothes officers detained al-Khawlani at the checkpoint and took him to the National Security headquarters in Sanaa, where officials held him for just over four months, according to al-Khawlani’s lawyer, Abd al-Aziz al-Samawi. According to al-Khawlani’s family, officials on May 18, 2013 transferred him to the Political Security Organization prison in Hadda. National Security sent his file to the Specialized Criminal Prosecution on May 15, 2013, at which point he was finally informed of the charges against him, according to al-Samawi. According to court documents the Political Security Organization has detained him since then.
On August 25 2013, al-Khawlani faced trial in the Specialized Criminal Court, along with two neighborhood friends of his, Abdullah Abdu Hadi al-Khaishani and Omar Abd al-Aziz Ahmed al-Najar, as well as Maher Abdullah Husain Muhammad al-Rumaim, a man al-Khawlani’s family says that he does not know, on charges of affiliation with Al-Qaeda and conspiracy to carry out criminal acts on its behalf.
According to the September 15 court decision, the prosecution accused al-Khawlani of having joined Al-Qaeda in 2012 through al-Khaishani and al-Najar, and stated that officials detained him at the checkpoint in order to charge him with carrying out surveillance for the terrorist organization—an act to which he confessed during interrogations by National Security officers.
Yet he pleaded innocent and said that the officers beat and burned him during the interrogation and through these acts forced him to sign the confession. According to Husam al-Samawi, a second lawyer representing al-Khawlani at the hearing, the judge, Hilal Hamid Ali Mahfal, did not order any investigation into the allegations of torture, or order an examination from a forensic doctor.
In a second hearing session on September 8, 2013, the court ordered the release of al-Khawlani on bail, pending a future hearing. He was not released.
On September 15, the court found all four men guilty of carrying out surveillance in order to plan several terrorist attacks targeting Your Excellency, security officers, and soldiers, the US ambassador, and other public figures, as well as the kidnapping of foreigners. The court gave lengthier sentences to the other three defendants, but ruled that al-Khawlani had already spent sufficient time in prison and should be released.
The Ministry of Human Rights wrote a letter to Attorney General Dr. Ali Ahmed al-Awash on November 3, 2013, calling for al-Khawlani’s release. On November 24 2013, a local NGO, Half al-Fadhul, sent another letter to Dr. al-Awash calling for al-Khawlani’s release, and Dr. al-Awash forwarded the letter to the Specialized Criminal Prosecution, with a note demanding the implementation of the court decision. A December 24, 2013 letter from Prosecutor Adel Ahmed al-Hammadi to the Specialized Criminal Prosecution states that al-Khawlani was released on September 8, 2013. However, according to his family and his lawyers, al-Khawlani remains in prison.
We kindly request that your office inform us of steps it has taken to ensure that al-Khawlani be released immediately, in line with the court judgment, and compensated for four months of unlawful detention since the court issued its ruling. We also request an update on what steps the National Security Bureau has taken to investigate the torture allegations al-Khalwani made during the trial.
Sincerely yours,
Sarah Leah Whitson
Director
Middle East and North Africa Division
