Yemen court jails anti-US judge for 10 years

03 Oct, 2004

A Yemeni court on Saturday sentenced a judge who supported an anti-US cleric to 10 years in jail for sedition, fanning sectarian discord and forming an armed gang, the official Saba news agency reported.
Judge Mohamed Ali Loqman, arrested in July, was found guilty of supporting anti-US cleric Hussein al-Houthi - killed by Yemeni forces last month - by setting up a branch of his "Believing Youth" group.
More than 200 rebels and troops have been killed in clashes over the past two months between Yemeni forces and Houthi and his supporters.
Sanaa accuses Houthi of setting up unlicensed religious centres and forming an armed group which has staged protests against the United States and Israel.
His group is not linked to al Qaeda.
Anti-US sentiment is high in Yemen and other countries in the Middle East over the presence of US troops in Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Yemen, a poor country of 19 million people, is also fighting to root out militants linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

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