Man sentenced to death for killing missionaries

A Yemeni court today sentenced a suspected al-Qaida militant to death for killing three US missionaries, his lawyer said.

Lawyer Mahrous Oqba said Abed Abdul Razak Kamel, 30, was sentenced to death over the December 30 shooting deaths of Kathleen Gariety of Wauwatosa, Wisconsin, Martha Myers of Montgomery, Alabama, and William Koehn of Kansas.

Donald Caswell, of Levelland, Texas, was wounded in the attack.

The verdict was given in Jibla, 125 miles south of the Yemeni capital of San’a, which was the site of the Southern Baptist-run hospital where the killings took place.

Kamel pleaded not guilty to the killings and his lawyer said he would appeal against the verdict, saying it violated Islamic law.

Court officials were not available for comment.

Kamel, who was arrested the day of the shooting, had confessed to co-ordinating the attack with Ali al-Jarallah, another suspected Muslim extremist accused of gunning down a Yemeni left-wing politician two days before the Jibla hospital attack.

Kamel said he had planned his attack for 18 months, and often consulted with al-Jarallah. He even scouted his target, visiting the hospital often and asking questions about its activities.

Yemeni security officials have said they believe both Kamel and al-Jarallah belonged to a terrorist cell linked to al Qaida.

On the day of the shootings, Kamel said during an earlier court hearing that he walked into the hospital with a semiautomatic rifle hidden under his clothes and opened fire on a staff meeting involving the Americans, firing two shots at each target.

On April 21, Kamel said he killed the missionaries “out of a religious duty and in revenge from those who converted Muslims from their religion and made them unbelievers”.

Kamel said he had learned that women were visiting the hospital to get sterilised. “This is a violation of Islam,” he told the court last month.

Jibla residents have said the American victims never discussed religion and provided vital health care services. Yemeni law prohibits non-Muslims from proselytising in the overwhelmingly Muslim country.

Abdel Karim Hassan, the hospital’s director, welcomed the death sentence, but said it didn’t go far enough. “He (Kamel) deserves even worse,” Hassan said.

Security officials said audiotapes with the voice of al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden were found at Kamel’s house. Police also said they believed a cell Kamel belonged to was plotting attacks against at least eight targets, including foreigners and Yemeni politicians.

The Saudi-born bin Laden has family ties to Yemen and is believed to have strong support there.

In October 2000, an explosive-laden boat rammed into the USS Cole destroyer in the southern Yemeni port of Aden, killing 17 US sailors. The attack was blamed on al-Qaida, and ten key suspects escaped from a prison April 11 and remain at large.

After the hospital attack, funding problems forced the Virginia-based International Missions Board to transfer control of the Jibla hospital to a local charity founded by Yemeni Foreign Minister Abu Bakr al-Kerbi, a Canadian-trained doctor.

The hospital’s chief is now a Yemeni Health Ministry official, and many foreign doctors, including Americans, still work there.