Yemen's ex-ambassadors’ lawyers withdraw from court sessions, trial postponed

Several of the former Yemeni Ambassador to Mauritania’s defense lawyers boycotted the court session, causing Judge Mohsen Alwan to postpone the session for two weeks.

The former Yemeni ambassador Mohsen Askar Jubran is accused of instigating sedition, mobilizing people in southern governorates against the government, as well as writing and publishing false statements against the state in al-Ayam newspaper.

The evidence was read at the closed session which the media was prevented from attending.

The prosecution has accused the suspect, and provided evidence supporting their accusations of establishing the movements: the National Movement “Najah,” the National Authority for Independence, the National Authority for Adeni Independence, and the National Authority for Public Struggle. They went on to say that he attended several rallies against the government and has made contacts with Ali Nasser and Haidar al-Atas, however when the judge asked him to provide answers on the records about the collected evidence, the defendant refused to talk in the absence of his defense.

In a special statement to the Yemen Observer about the absence of the defense from the session, lawyer Jamal al-Ja’bi, a defense member, said that they withdrew from the session because it is a special case and their client is accused of political charges. “We anticipated that the court’s procedures were decided in advance. This means that our presence poses no security guarantees to our client, and so as not to be false witnesses, and pursuant to the trust placed on us by our client, we have seen it fit to not appear before the Court and not to participate in it.”

"The Supreme Court’s ruling was for one case and does not negate our right or belief that this court is special and does not guarantee a fair trial, and therefore we insist on our position and believe that any actions by this court are not made on a legal basis and we continue to insist on our decision not to appear before it," said al-Ja’bi.

 Al-Ja’bi said also that the court has no right to appoint other lawyers to defend our client in light of the fact that he has a defense which he ensured at the first session, however the court can choose to proceed with the trial but they can not claim that they provided fair defense to our client.

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