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February 27, 2006
Yemen: Islamist Killer Of US Missionaries Executed
News today from the BBC, from Reuters AlertNet, Associated Press via NBC15 Alabama and Fox News, also Sign on San Diego. An Islamist was today executed for the murder of three American Baptist missionaries. The three individuals, pictured above, were working in a Christian missionary hospital in Jibla, southern Yemen, 105 miles south of Sanaa, the capital. The killings were carried out on December 30, 2002 by the gunman, who cradled his Kalashnikov like a baby in his arms before shooting.
The three who died are pictured above: Martha Myers, 54, an obstetrician from Montgomery, Alabama, William Koehn, 60, hospital director, from Kansas, and administrator Kathleen Gariety, 53, from Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. A fourth individual, Donald Caswell, 49, from Texas, was shot in the stomach and severely injured. All the victims worked for the American Missionary board, based in Richmond, Virginia.
The killer, Abed Abdulrazzak Kamel (pictured, left) was arrested almost immediately after the shooting and underwent trial in 2003, where he received the death sentence. Yesterday, president Ali Adullah Saleh ratified the sentence, and Kamel was shot by firing squad in the central prison at Ebb province, according to Saba news agency.
Police in Yemen have stated that Kamel may have had ties with Al-Qaeda. Although born in Saudi Arabia, Osama bin Laden's ancestral home is in Yemen. At Kamel's house, police discovered audio tapes of bin Laden speaking.
At the time of the killings, the president of Yemen condemned the killings and sent a note of condolence to George W. Bush. The hospital has operated in Jibla for thirty five years.
Lawyers for Kamel stated that he did not have links with Al-Qaeda, but on May 13, 2003 a week after Kamel was condemned and given his death sentence, a bomb exploded in the courthouse in Jibla, where he had stood trial. Several individuals, including a judge, were injured.
Officials claim that Kamel had links with a leader of Islah, the Islamist opposition party. As we reported, this man, Ali Ahmed Muhammad Jarallah, was executed by firing squad on November 27 last year, for killing the leader of the Yemeni Socialist Party on 28 December 2002, two days before the killings at the hospital in Jibla.
Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at February 27, 2006 4:21 PM
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