A man claiming to be Yemen's ambassador to Syria said Friday he had fled to Britain to apply for political asylum after an alleged assassination attempt by the Yemeni authorities. Ahmed Abdel al-Hassani said he arrived in London with his family in the early hours of Thursday morning and was in the process of completing an asylum application with the local authorities. "I came here because there was an attempted assassination in Damascus. It was planned by... the Yemeni authorities," he told AFP.
Hassani, who said he had been Yemen's ambassador in Damascus for four years, claimed the authorities wanted to kill him because he was part of an opposition movement in the south of his country called the Southern Democratic Assembly.
The Yemeni diplomat described how a friend had tipped him off earlier in the year that the authorities wanted him dead.
He told the Syrian government about the threat and it dispatched extra security around his house in the Syrian capital, according to Hassani.
On March 26, however, the ambassador said a bomb was planted outside his home.
"After that, I received another warning from my friend that I should leave, otherwise next time it will be my head," he said.
The Yemeni embassy in London said it was unaware of Hassani's case and could not confirm the identity of the ambassador.