Yemin Judge Lets al Qaeda Off, Justified under Sharia

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Yemin Judge Lets al Qaeda Off, Justified under Sharia

James Joyner | Saturday, July 8, 2006

A Yemini judge has released 19 al Qaeda terrorists on the grounds that murdering foreigners is permissible under Sharia law.

The trial of 19 alleged al Qaeda members had been designed to showcase how serious Yemen was in the fight against terror. But the Islamic militants, accused of plotting to assassinate Westerners and blow up a hotel frequented by Americans, were all acquitted for lack of proof, the presiding judge ruled Saturday. Prosecutors had failed to provide “adequate evidence that the defendants were plotting attacks against foreigners or planning to assassinate Americans in Yemen,” the verdict said.

Critics say the decision points to the Yemeni president’s bid to win the radical Islamic vote ahead of elections due in September.

Several of defendants did confess to having been in Iraq to fight US troops there and had Iraqi stamps on their passport, the court heard. “But this does not violate [Yemeni] law,” the judge said. “Islamic Sharia law permits jihad against occupiers,” he said.

The religion of peace and all that.

About the Author: James Joyner is the publisher of Outside the Beltway and the managing editor of the Atlantic Council. He's a former Army officer, Desert Storm vet, and college professor with a PhD in political science from The University of Alabama. He lives just outside the Beltway in Alexandria, Virginia with his wife and infant daughter.

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