Statement issued by the defense committee for journalist

Statement issued by the defense committee for journalist, Abdul Kareem Al-Khaiwani  

The Defense committee for journalist Abdul Kareem Al-Khaiwani wishes

 to declare responsibility, the illegality of his incarceration, as follows.   

The man, having stormed his home and forcibly taken to the headquarters of the Specialized Penal Prosecution by the manner which everyone knows, had been imprisoned in custody pending charges were not brought against him that time. When brought to trial, he was released by the previous Head of the Specialized   Penal Court, Judge, Najeeb Al-Qaderi, after he provided a confirmed commercial assurance, on the basis of authoritative reasons demanded release, including health reasons. He suffers from heart disease, according to the medical report submitted a copy of a document to request release. The decision for release is supported by the decision of the Appellant Division Of Specialized Penal Prosecution contained rejecting of prosecution resumption and support the decision to release issued by the primary court, for the same reasons upon which the later is based. 

        The set of sentencing hold on 9 / 6 / 2008 accounted to be the meeting of disproving of injustice for our client, attributed to him arbitrarily and unjustly due to the compelling evidence of his innocence. But the Specialized Penal Prosecution is hastened to arrest him from the courtroom after the utterance of the sentence which included sixteen articles, then imprisoned in the Central Prison, contrary to the law.

 To: imprison him in the Central Prison due to the following evidences.  

- The sentence uttered in the meeting does not include except sixteen articles, and this is fixed in recordings of many satellite channels and other media, the recordings were authorized by the President of the Court, the presiding officer, himself. The testimony large gathering of journalists, jurists and politicians who attended the meeting pronunciation.  

- The reasons of the uttered sentence at the meeting as it is now after the issue of the final version of the rule does not include any reference to justify the inclusion of the provision into accelerated force, as required by the text of the law, Article NO.

 (475 / 6 a. C)..

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-The first article of the uttered sentence provides the first defendant to death, in the respect of punishment and punitive as it was said. So, it is impossible to reason, logic and law that the sentence can include accelerated force in the event so.!!  

    The News of inserting addendum to the original text of the sentence had descended on the defense team as a thunder due to the extreme gravity of that in terms of it being a forgery in a formal document, which is regarded a criminal, senseless and outrageous, and unprecedented act within the limits of our knowledge at least. However, the defense team, did not deal with it in the hasty and furious reactions, but it exhausted all the possible techniques to control reasonable reactions, taking into account of several considerations because of no person wishes or pleases to describe the judiciary of his homeland as rigging. Therefore it refrained from making any statement on the subject, as it refrained from pursuing any of the many possible options that would raise and detect the issue ( like as the lawsuit path in the adversarial proceedings or complaint..etc.). Besides, it deals with that addendum as abstract material act and resorted to the path of judiciary itself. In order to stop the implementation of primary sentence, the committee of defense advanced to the Appellant Division Of Specialized Penal Prosecution urgent request attached with the video recordings of meetings and sentencing proved with the image and sound clarifies that the sentence does not include the names of the expedited access. We did that only to provide a valuable opportunity for our respected judiciary to remove the mistake and correct the scene as we thought. We hopefully expected that the man who is concerned for Division Justice would have been decided upon by stopping the execution then draw the curtain on the fact that forgery in accordance with the rules of urgent justice which contained that any decision is taken within 24 hours ( Article NO.243 / pleadings). For us, that was for interest on the reputation of the judiciary and the people's confidence in it, which is already eroded. But all of that go in vain.

     Although, the Division had identified the meeting to be held on Tuesday 29/7/2008 to consider the request and decided upon, as is assumed, It came to convene meeting to consider the matter of the lawsuit. So, it omitted or neglected our urgent request which was supported by all reasons and arguments, to defer the decision under the pretext that "the request to release have to be considered after the judiciary holiday", it described. Thus, no attention was paid for the request by the Division whereas it should decide upon according to the rules of urgent justice.   

    There is no way before us except a matter of declaration responsibly and sorrow that our client's, Al-Khaiwani, imprisoned in the Central Prison by the Specialized Panel Prosecution in contravention of the provisions of the law. Furthermore, his imprisonment turned to justify later by inserting a forged article within the sentence. The committee is now studying all possible options in consultation with its client cause of he is the only one concerned and the owner of his decision in this affair. The committee, in the same time, appeals the Syndicate of Yemeni Journalists and all civil activities, rights, political and other civil society demonstrations in general, to come together for wide and serious solidarity beside this issue, particularly, whenever it becomes not of Al-Khaiwani alone, but humiliated affect to the legal validity in the whole country.

The Defense Committee For the Journalist, Abdul Kareem Al-Khaiwani.

Lawyers,

Hayel Sallam

Nabeel Al-Mohammadi

Muhammad Al-Mudani

Sana'a

03- 08-