By: Abdul Salam al-Hatimi

The terrorist Houthi militia continues to politicize the judiciary and make it one of its most prominent tools for revenge against political opponents and terrorizing citizens in its areas of control. Where every few months, it resorts to issuing new sentences against innocent civilians that it has unjustly and aggressively abducted and has worked to keep them behind bars for years. And in this way, the militia presents the worst de-facto authority in history that has not provided citizens with anything but repression, violence, terrorism, prisons, torture and death sentences that are not based on fair trials, nor even based on the logical and realistic charges against the victims of those sentences, and those who issue those sentences are not Honest judges who are known to receive orders of these rulings from the leaders of the terrorist Houthi militia.

And the last of these terrorist sentences was the ruling issued by the Houthis’ Specialized Criminal Court in Sana’a that sentenced three citizens to death, after they were charged with trumped-up charges, one of whom was the director of “Al-Nahda Al-Haditha Schools” in Sana’a, Fahd al-Salami, Sadiq al-Majidi and Khaled al-Aulufi.

Also, last Tuesday, the Houthi court issued an eight-year prison sentence against: Ahmed al-Qatta, Fouad al-Awadi, Nabil al-Saddawi and Asim Radman, which start from the date of their arrest, and issued a seven-year prison sentence against each of: Mansour al-Faqih, Issam al-Zindani, Muhammad al-Harazi, Mukhtar al-Jabali and Mahdani al-Mahdani, which start from the date of their arrest, in addition to the issuance of a sentence to imprisonment for al-Habeeb al-Audayni for five years and his release immediately after the sentence was pronounced due to the expiry of the sentence during the prison period.

- Retaliatory provisions and terrorist behavior:

And the Houthi militia’s tampering with the judiciary, politicizing it and giving it a militia character come within its terrorist behavior that included all fields and violated all sanctities and sacred rites. And the judiciary is considered one of its means to suppress its opponents and get rid of them. And some of these sentences have already been implemented, such as the militia's execution of nine of the sons of Tihama in Sana'a under the pretext of participating in the assassination of Houthi leader Saleh al-Sammad. The militia has also harnessed the judiciary to conduct mock trials against many detainees, especially media professionals, in addition to directing false accusations and issuing arbitrary sentences against them, which amounted to the issuance of death sentences.

The illegal trials conducted by the Houthis after their coup against the legitimate authority have been numerous, in order to get rid of their opponents. And the Houthis invested all the charges that apply to them to direct them against their opponents, such as the accusation of high treason to the homeland, terrorism and belonging to the Al-Qaeda Organization, in addition to the provisions that the militia employed against merchants and businessmen in order to confiscate their money, companies and commercial establishments.

And since 2017, the Houthi militia has issued more than 200 death sentences in cases of a political nature after trials that lack the minimum standards and fair trial guarantees, as well as the trials it is conducting against a large number of civilians before a politicized and unfair judiciary. And the role of judges in the courts is limited to performing a theatrical role in trials that are similar to plays and judicial rulings are written in advance by militia leaders. And these rulings stem from the assumption that the entire people are condemned by the militia, except for those whose loyalty to it was assured and who made sacrifices for it, even though they are from their sons whom the militia pushes to the burners of death.

And in order for the politicized sword of the judiciary to continue to master over the heads of citizens, the Houthi militia intentionally resorts to the repetition of some sentences several times. And the militia exaggerated in tampering with the judiciary and what it is issuing of farcical rulings, such as the sentences that adjudged the execution of Presidents of the Western States such as Former President of the United States of America, Donald Trump, Saudi King Salman, Saudi Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, Vice President of the Republic and a number of members of the House of Representatives and others. And those provisions are employed by the terrorist militia in order to confiscate the money and property of its opponents.

- Violations against judges:

And earlier, a report issued by the Judges Club revealed the extent of the terrorist Houthi militia's violation of human rights and the rule of law against judges. And the report pointed to the high frequency of violations and attacks the judiciary and judges subjected to that ranged from premeditated murder, attempted murder, enforced disappearance, torture, abduction, threats and insulting the judiciary.

Likewise, the judges objected to what they described as regional discrimination through the decision to restrict of settlements to judges working in areas of legitimate authority and considered it a violation of the principle of judicial independence and the dwarfing of the judicial authority.

And the legitimate government tried to preserve the judicial system in the Houthi areas by paying the judges’ salaries, unlike the rest of the institutions, but the repetition of issuing politicized rulings in the courts under Houthi control prompted the Supreme Judicial Council - which was transferred to the temporary capital of Aden - to establish a specialized criminal court and prosecution in Marib Governorate and withdraw Powers of the Specialized Criminal Court in Sana'a.

And the Yemeni Supreme Judicial Council had issued decisions in April 2018, which judged to abolish the "Criminal Court" under the control of the Houthis, and considered all judgments issued by it null, as they are political and illegal sentences.

Thus, the Houthi death sentences and other politicized sentences to be like terrorism and war crimes that do not fall within the statute of limitations, especially the false and unjust sentences they implement in public squares and spaces, knowing that these militias do not stop killing innocent children, women and the elderly by bombing their homes through ballistic missiles, drones, heavy artillery and sniping, as well as torture to death in prisons, thus, these militias deserve to be described as the ugliest terrorist group throughout history.