Handcuffed, face down and shot: Yemeni executed for child rape and murder

SANAA (Reuters) – A man convicted of raping and murdering a three-year-old girl was executed in front of hundreds of spectators in the Yemeni capital Sanaa on Monday, the first public execution there since 2009. “Security was very tight because authorities feared a revenge attack by armed men from the Bani Matar tribe, to which the girl’s family belongs,” said Reuters photographer Khaled Abdullah, who witnessed the incident. The police van that took 41-year-old Muhammad al-Maghrabi to Sanaa’s Tahrir Square was escorted by five patrol cars. The execution attracted a large number of spectators, some sitting on telegraph poles and many watching from rooftops. As Maghrabi arrived, the crowd began chanting “Allah is the greatest.” “The man was escorted from the car to the middle of the square and then there was complete chaos and I was fighting for a position to take photos,” Abdullah said. “He tried to talk to the executioner, a policeman who was calmly smoking a cigarette while standing next to him, before pointing his AK-47 at his back at close range. “Soon he fired about four shots and people realized it was done. They rushed to the scene and tried to get the body, but the police managed to get the body into the van and drove through the crowd out of the square.” Yahya al-Matari, the father of murder victim Rana al-Matari, told reporters after the execution that he was satisfied. “This is the first day of my life,” he said. “I am relieved now.” Yemen has been devastated by more than two years of civil war between its Saudi-backed government and Houthi fighters who seized parts of the country in 2014 and 2015. Reuters Wider Image Images: http://reut.rs/2uNIW70 (Reporting by Khaled Abdullah; Editing by Richard Balmforth and Robin (Pomeroy)