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Yemen acquits 19 in al-Qaida linked trial

A Yemeni court on Saturday acquitted 19 men charged with planning attacks against U.S. interests in the Arab country due to lack of evidence.
/ Source: Reuters

A Yemeni court on Saturday acquitted 19 men charged with planning attacks against U.S. interests in the Arab country due to lack of evidence.

The men, including five Saudis, had been accused of plotting to carry out attacks to avenge the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency’s killing of a top al-Qaida operative with an unmanned CIA plane in Yemen in 2002.

Prosecutors had said the 19 traveled to Iraq and then returned to Yemen to carry out their “mission” on the orders of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq who was killed in a U.S. air raid a month ago.

“The court decided to acquit the accused due to lack of evidence,” the judge said.

Yemen, the ancestral home of Saudi-born al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

The country has cracked down on al-Qaida-linked militants following attacks at home, including the bombing in 2000 of the U.S. warship Cole and an attack in 2002 on the French supertanker Limburg.