Lawyers deny Yemeni journalist backs Shiite rebels

AFP, March, 2008

SANAA (AFP) — Defence lawyers on Tuesday rejected charges that a Yemeni journalist on trial backs Shiite rebels, saying material about the insurgents found in his possession was needed for his work.

"CDs and documents mentioned in the charge sheet do not amount to proof that our client was a member of an armed group," Nabil al-Mohammadi, a member of the defence team for Abdel Karim al-Khiwani, told a court in Sanaa.

"Our client got these CDs and papers by virtue of his job as a professional journalist, which is a right guaranteed by laws and the constitution," he told the court, which is trying Khiwani and 14 others from the minority Zaidi Shiite community.

The evidence contained material about a Zaidi rebellion that has been raging on and off in northwestern Yemen since 2004, claiming thousands of lives.

The trial of Khiwani, editor of the Zaidi weekly ...