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NEWS
Murder Victim in Yemen Buried After Two Weeks
by Yated Ne'eman Staff
Moshe Yaish Nahari Hy'd, who was murdered by a Muslim
in the marketplace near his home, was buried in the town of
Riydah last week, following a delay of nearly two weeks. He
was buried alongside his grandfather's grave, not far from a
grave of a Jew murdered 16 years ago. Two hundred local Jews
took place in the levaya, which was held under heavy
police guard.
The burial was held up due to the legal process in Yemen, in
which, in order to ensure that justice is served, the victim
must be buried on the same day as the murderer. That could
take months, but Israeli activists applied pressure to
accelerate the burial.
Yemeni authorities refused to carry out the family's request
to have the body transported to Eretz Yisroel for burial, but
he was buried in a coffin to make reinterment possible at a
later time. Now figures with ties to the community are trying
to move the rest of his family (including the widow and her
nine children) to a safe location outside of Yemen. A few of
the relatives sat Shiva in their homes in Bnei
Brak.
According to reports last week, heads of the Jewish community
in the province of Amran in northern Yemen rejected President
Ali Abdullah Selah's offer to relocate them to the capital
city of Sanaa, which is relatively safe, following threats to
their lives and well-being. The arrangement would have
required the Jews to give up their land and many possessions
without compensation, but they say even though they would be
given plots of land and an initial grant, the proposal was
not enough to allow reasonable subsistence.
Lawyers representing the alleged killer, Abdul Aziz Yahya al-
Abdi, who has a criminal record, claimed he is unfit to stand
trial and was discharged from the Yemeni Air Force due to his
mental condition. Abdi confessed he killed the deceased
because he was a Jew, and in a letter to the court wrote, "I
told the Jews they must convert to Islam or leave Yemen, and
then I wouldn't kill them." He renounced the volunteer
lawyers representing him, demanding his tribe members bring
in an American attorney, saying their declarations are
helping the Jews against him.
Despite objections by the prosecutor the court accepted the
request for a psychiatric examination and the trial was
scheduled to reconvene last Wednesday.
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