YEMEN: The long-delayed trial of six men accused of involvement in a suicide attack which killed 17 US sailors and almost sank a £540 million guided-missile destroyer opened in Yemen yesterday.
The USS Cole was refuelling in Aden harbour on October 12th, 2000, when two men sailed an explosives-laden dinghy alongside it and blew themselves up, blasting a 12-metre hole in the warship.
In court yesterday, six suspects were charged with planning the attack, belonging to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, forming an armed group and carrying out various criminal acts.
One of the six, Mr Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri - also known as Mohammed Omer al-Harazi - was charged in his absence because he is held by the US at an undisclosed location.
Mr Nashiri, described as the mastermind of the attack, left Yemen a few days before the explosion and disappeared. He was eventually captured in the United Arab Emirates two years later.
He is the cousin of a suicide bomber who blew up the US embassy in Nairobi in 1998, according to the US.
Yemeni sources say he was also the organiser of a foiled al-Qaeda plot to blow up the US embassy in India in 2001.
The other five suspects appeared in court yesterday bearded and wearing blue overalls.
They included Mr Jamal al-Badawi, who is said to have received instructions for the bombing from Mr Nashiri, and Mr Fahd al-Qusaa, who allegedly bought the dinghy along with a camera to film the attack.
Representatives of the FBI and US justice department attended the hearing, which was held amid tight security in the capital, Sana'a. The trial was delayed because of US complaints that more time was needed to compile evidence, with the result that the suspects were detained beyond Yemen's legal time limit. Yemen is asking the US to hand over Mr Nashiri, but there is no sign that the US will agree.
Mr Badawi and Mr Qusaa were among a group of suspects who escaped from jail in Yemen last year. They were rearrested in March.
Yemen, the ancestral home of Bin Laden, became a popular refuge for jihadis from Afghanistan during the 1990s. Since the September 11th attacks, the government of President Ali Abdullah Salih has co-operated with the US in tracking down al-Qaeda suspects. However, the campaign has resulted in many people being imprisoned without charge or trial, according to human rights organisations.
Partly in response to these complaints, Yemen has begun a limited release of detainees under a programme of Islamic "re-education". - (Guardian Service)