As Qatar's Peninsula On-line reports:
A Yemeni appeals court yesterday acquitted 19 suspected members of an Al Qaeda cell of terror charges, convicting only six of the group of forging documents.
The 19, including five Saudi nationals, had been charged by the prosecutor's office with having plotted anti-US attacks in Yemen at the behest of the then head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, killed last June in a US air raid near Baghdad.
The so-called "Zarqawi group" was acquitted in July by a Sanaa court which specializes in state security matters on grounds of lack of evidence.
The prosecutor challenged the verdict in an appeals court that looks into cases related to state security.
But judge Saeed Al Qattaa, presiding over the appeals court, again threw out the charge that the 19 men had formed an armed group and plotted attacks against Americans in Yemen.
He said there was not sufficient proof to support prosecution charges that they had "taken part in the formation of an armed unit" and "the planning of attacks against Americans in Yemen and Yemenis who deal with them."
Six members of the group, including one Saudi, were however convicted of forging travel and other official documents.
Two of those, both Yemenis, were jailed for three years while the court sufficed with the jail terms already served by the four others since their arrest.
The members of the group were detained in several parts of Yemen early last year, some after their return from fighting US-led forces in Iraq.
Their trial, which opened in February, was the latest in a number of cases involving suspected militants in Yemen, several of whom have been convicted.
The impoverished Arabian peninsula country has seen a series of attacks in recent years, notably the bombing by Al Qaeda militants of the US destroyer Cole in the southern port of Aden in 2000 that killed 17 American sailors.The U.S.S. Cole
French oil vessel Limburg off of Yemeni coast.
A 2002 attack against the French oil tanker Limburg killed one Bulgarian crew member and wounded 12 others.
There is no 'war on terror,' only a sham of an operation, a half-hearted, torture-intensive, that moves into action whenever the Bush administration needs to instill fear into the American people in order to control the people and retain absolute power of the government by Republicans.
The Dubai Ports International deal is still on, and the U.S. remains as vulnerable to terrorist acts as it was on September 10, 2001. While governments can't protect their citizens from all acts by madmen, those ruling the U.S. (and all other corporate western nations today) continue creating the conditions that drive people to commit acts of terror, and write off their citizens that are killed in desperate acts by desperate people as "the cost of being the richest country in the world."
As we saw on September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda was able to bring us to our knees (bankrupt us and rip our Constitition to shreds) by using a low-tech weapon. They don't need nuclear weapons - that's the weapon of choice for our leaders, to "shock and awe" and strike fear into our hearts and bowels, making citizens more manageable. Bush-Cheney have done next to nothing to prevent any more low-tech attacks (such as small planes flying into liquid natural gas tankers or on-shore holding tanks in populated cities), because it would cut into corporate profits.
LNG catastrophes (liquid natural gas, a highly flammable gas when put under pressure turns into liquid which when you release the pressure, it turns back into a gas and burns like crazy) have devastated cities when they have been accidents. There's no telling the damage that an intentional attack might cause (a square city mile was destroyed in the Cleveland disaster).
Are you living anywhere near LNG holding tanks, or any proposed ones?
Bush and Cheney have no loved ones' lives on the line; even John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial before 9/11/01.
Filed under: LNG, liquid natural gas, Cleveland disaster, John Ashcroft, reasons not to vote for Republicans, Zarqawi, Zarqawi group, Limburg, U.S.S. Cole, Yemen, Al Qaeda, Saudis, no war on terror, Bush, The Constant American, Constant American, Technorati Tag, Technorati Tags, tags, categories
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