Court hears of Saudi-Kuwaiti plan to target Egypt

Calcutta News.Net
Saturday 16th February, 2008

A state security court in Yemen has sentenced two local men to death over trying to spy for Egypt.

The court in Sanaa heard that the men had provided the Egyptian Embassy with information about an alleged joint Saudi-Kuwaiti plan to finance terrorist attacks in Egypt.

But the Egyptian Embassy reported the details of the meeting to the Yemeni National Security Agency.

The men were found guilty of supplying Egyptian diplomats in Sanaa with details of the alleged conspiracy by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Prosecutors said the men had met an Egyptian diplomat and handed over to him a 'confidential' document, supposedly issued by the Saudi intelligence services.

The documents alleged that attacks on Egypt would target the tourist market.

Prosecutors said the information the two defendants had provided was misleading and untrue and that one of the men was motivated by revenge after Saudi authorities stripped him of Saudi nationality in 1998.

The court's presiding judge said the defendant's acts would have damaged Yemen's diplomatic and political position and its relations with Egypt.

Meanwhile, the two defendants have denied the charge, saying it was fabricated.

One of the men has told the court he got the report from the archive of the Saudi cabinet.

He also said he was a brigadier general in the Saudi army before he was dismissed in 1998.

The document's authenticity was not confirmed by the Yemeni authorities, who did not provide any dates for the alleged conspiracy.

The lawyer for the men has said there will be an appeal.

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