A court run by Yemen's Houthi rebels on Saturday sentenced 44 people to death, including a businessman working with aid groups, on spying charges, a defense lawyer said. The 44 were among 49 people who were detained by the Iran-backed rebels and accused of “collaborating with the enemy,” a reference to the Saudi-led coalition that has been at war with the Houthis since 2015, lawyer Abdel-Majeed Sabra said. Four were given prison sentences, Sabra said.
He said the defense team withdrew at the beginning of the trial after the judges refused to allow them to obtain a copy of the case documents, describing the trial as “unfair.” A spokesman for the Houthis didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Thousands have been imprisoned by the Houthis during Yemen’s civil war. An AP investigation found some detainees were scorched with acid, forced to hang from their wrists for weeks at a time or were beaten with batons.