Houthi Gallows Confront Peace: Three Abductees Face Execution After “Political” Trials

Yemen Monitor / Reports Unit / Special:

At a time when the families of three abductees from Al-Mahwit Governorate (west of Yemen)—Ismail Abu Al-Ghaith, Saghir Farea, and Abdulaziz Al-Aqeeli—were awaiting news that might ease ten years of suffering, hoping for good tidings of their return as part of a prisoner exchange deal recently sponsored by the United Nations in Muscat, the Houthi group shocked them with a devastating decision: moving forward with the implementation of death sentences in the coming days.

A Decade of Waiting Behind Bars

Ten years are not just numbers; they are a lifetime lost from the lives of three detainees held in Houthi prisons since 2015. A decade spent within the walls of dark cells, under brutal torture that extracted confessions from bodies no longer able even to stand.

While international efforts draw closer to reuniting families through an “all for all” exchange deal, the Houthi group insists on carrying out death sentences issued through unlawful procedures and trials that observers describe as “sham trials.”

According to human rights reports, the abductees were subjected to enforced disappearance in unofficial detention facilities for more than five years without contact with the outside world. They endured severe physical and psychological torture to extract illegal confessions, leaving one of them permanently unable to move or stand. They were denied the right to defense and access to lawyers during trial sessions held by the Specialized Criminal Court controlled by the Houthi group. The Houthi-run Appeals Chamber and Supreme Court in Sana’a ratified the death sentences against the three in July 2024, and their families were informed just days ago that the sentences would be carried out.

Exchange Deals and the Houthi Guillotine

Human rights reports and a statement by the Ministry of Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Yemeni government confirm that the timing of these decisions is no coincidence. While the Omani capital, Muscat, was hosting UN-sponsored negotiations for the release of abductees—with support from coalition partners and significant mediation efforts to ensure the deal’s success—the Houthi group was preparing gallows for the detainees. The ministry noted that this is a method of blackmail the group has long practiced, using the lives of innocents as “pressure cards” to achieve political gains, in blatant disregard for all humanitarian and moral obligations.

The Abductees’ Mothers Association (an organization advocating for detainees) also warned that one of the three abductees has been left completely immobile as a result of torture. Today, the issue is no longer merely about laws and regulations, but about human life and dignity.

A Call for Justice and Rejection of the “Sham Performance”

At a protest event, residents of Al-Mahwit Governorate currently in Marib Governorate stood on Sunday to issue a call for justice to the United Nations and the international community, under the slogan: “Our sons are not numbers for negotiation, nor fuel for political revenge.”

They stressed that forcing abductees to receive their execution orders inside prison, after years of enforced disappearance, constitutes a “fully fledged crime” aimed at breaking the will of Yemenis.

The protest demanded that the Presidential Leadership Council and the government treat the lives of these three men as a red line in any upcoming negotiations and take urgent action to break the guillotine of death. It also called on the United Nations and the UN envoy to break their silence and exert real pressure to halt this “sham performance” being staged in the corridors of the Specialized Criminal Court in Sana’a. The protesters appealed to Yemeni tribes and free people around the world to stand united against this “arrogance” that spills Yemeni blood without restraint.

Residents of Al-Mahwit affirmed that the blood of Ismail, Saghir, and Abdulaziz is not merely a “political issue,” but a test of the world’s conscience: will advocates of peace prevail, or will the “guillotine of death” imposed by the Houthi group on innocents prevail?