The United Kingdom, Turkey and the United States have been asked to open investigations into alleged war crimes by the United Arab Emirates in Yemen in 2015 and 2019.
They have also been asked to arrest UAE officials, by the British law firm Stoke White, who filed the complaints to the Metropolitan Police in London, the US Department of Justice and Turkey’s Ministry of Justice.
Stoke White filed the complaints on behalf of Yemeni journalist Abdullah Suliman Abdullah Daubalah, who claims he was targeted in an attack in Aden, and Salah Muslem Salem, whose brother was killed in Yemen.
“Evidence shows that UAE and Yemeni officials, and mercenaries allegedly hired and instructed by the UAE, are responsible for torture and war crimes committed against civilians with political positions opposed to the UAE government. It is requested that the UK, US and Turkish police open investigations into these alleged crimes as soon as possible”, the law firm said.
It added that Daubalah and Salem had evidence that in 2015, the UAE reportedly hired former US soldiers to assassinate Anssaf Ali Mayo, the local leader of the political party Al-Islah, with which Daubalah and Salem are affiliated. The attempt failed, and a bomb was placed at Al-Islah party buildings in Aden, targeting Daubalah.
Al-Islah is considered by the UAE as the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is designated a terror group by the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The Saudi-UAE coalition intervened in Yemen‘s civil war in 2015, after Houthi rebels seized parts of the country. They also removed President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government from Sanaa, the capital.
Salah Muslem Salem’s brother was killed in Yemen. According to Stoke White, the killing was with the intention to scare Salem against returning to Yemen from exile because of the “political views he shared on social media”.
“The evidence demonstrates the widespread and systematic nature of violations and crime committed in Yemen against Yemeni civilians either by UAE officials or at their instruction”, Stoke White concluded.
US, UK, Turkey asked to arrest UAE 'war crimes' suspects
EPA/YAHYA ARHAB
Yemenis stand around a crater allegedly made by an airstrike of the Saudi-led coalition at a neighborhood in Sana?a, Yemen, 01 October 2015. According to reports, at least two Yemenis were killed and ten others wounded when two airstrikes hit a neighborhood in the Yemeni capital Sana'a, a day after a Dutch proposal of a fact-finding mission in the war-torn Yemen to the UN Human Rights Council was dropped.
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