A British law firm has submitted requests to the British, American and Turkish authorities to arrest senior officials from the UAE on suspicion of war crimes and torture in Yemen.
Law firm "Stock White" filed these complaints on Tuesday, based on the principle of "universal jurisdiction", which states that countries are obligated to investigate violations of the Geneva Convention on War Crimes, regardless of where they are committed.
The company filed complaints with the London police and the US and Turkish justice ministries on behalf of Abdullah Suleiman Abdullah Dubleh, a journalist, and on the authority of Salah Muslim Salem, whose brother was killed in Yemen.
And their lawyers said in the complaint that the UAE and its "mercenaries" were responsible for torture and war crimes against civilians in Yemen between 2015 and 2019. The complaint cited the names of senior Emirati military and political officials as suspects.
Hakan Jammuz, head of international law at StockStock law firm, told a news conference in London that StockStock possessed evidence of war crimes committed by the UAE in Yemen, including torture and extrajudicial killing, and the use of mercenaries.
"We call on the United States, Britain and Turkey to arrest the UAE officials accused of committing these crimes in Yemen," he added.
The company also indicated - in a press release - that it provided evidence of war crimes and torture in the UAE in Yemen to the British Capital Police Service and the US and Turkish Ministries of Justice.
"The suspects reside in the UAE and the United States and do not reside in Britain or Turkey ... but they travel to Britain constantly," Jammuz said. "We asked the police to monitor their entry to the countries mentioned."
| The law firm confirmed that it possesses evidence of the UAE's recruitment of mercenaries in Yemen (Al-Jazeera) |
Mercenary victims
One of the victims represented by the law firm, journalist Abdullah Suleiman Abdullah Dubleh, said he survived a bomb attack on the Islah party building in Aden in 2015.
He added that the dismissed leader of the Palestinian Fatah movement, Mohammed Dahlan, was the one who ordered the attack.
As for Salem Salem Nasser Moftah - another victim in the same case - he pointed out that he was tortured in a center controlled by the Emirates, pointing out that other people were also tortured in that center.
For her part, Turkish lawyer Golden Sunmez said - during the press conference - that she represented two Yemeni victims, who are refugees in Turkey at the present time.
She added that Abu Dhabi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed and other Emirati officials and soldiers were among the perpetrators.
Sunmiz also confirmed that she has sufficient evidence to prove Dahlan's involvement in the killings in Yemen by the mercenary squad.
| UAE awarded Dahlan the mediation role to contract a US security company to assassinate Yemeni figures (Reuters) |
Dahlan is an intermediary
In October 2018, the American "Bazfeed" website revealed that the UAE was granting the mediation role to Muhammad Dahlan to contract with the American private security company, Spire Operation, which includes former military personnel of the American Special Forces, with the aim of forming a mercenary squad whose mission is to assassinate political and religious figures close to the Islah party. Yemeni.
And the website quoted Abraham Golan, the former leader of the assassinations program in the mercenary squad hired by the Emirates in Yemen, who is an Israeli Hungarian security contractor, that the targeted assassinations program in Yemen was commissioned by the UAE.
He explained that the deal that brought American mercenaries to Aden was agreed upon during a lunch in an Italian restaurant in the officers club at an Emirati military base in Abu Dhabi, where their host was Mohammed Dahlan.
According to the American website, the group of mercenaries had a mission on December 29, 2015, the assassination of a leader of the Islah party, Insaf Ali Mayo.
Despite the failure of the May assassination plan, the American site considered it the first in a series of unsolved assassinations, and it led to the death of more than twenty leaders of the Islah party.
According to Bazfid, an Emirati officer submitted to the mercenaries a list of assassinations of 23 cards for members of the Reform Party and clerics, and they received $ 1.5 million a month with special rewards for each successful assassination.
Yemen has witnessed the assassination of prominent Salafi leader Abdul Majeed al-Adani and former Aden governor General Jaafar Asaad, by elements whose identities have not been revealed so far.
The UAE considers the Islah party - the Yemeni branch of the Muslim Brotherhood - a terrorist organization.
It is noteworthy that the French law firm Ancel filed a suit in November 2017 with the International Criminal Court against the Emirates for the hiring of mercenaries who committed war crimes in Yemen.
Britain has previously tried foreign citizens for war crimes in other countries since the beginning of the third millennium under the principle of universal jurisdiction, as it sentenced an Afghan citizen named Friadi Zardad 20 years in prison for accusing him of torture and taking hostages. In 2016, the Old Bailey Criminal Court in London acquitted the Nepalese Colonel Kumar Lama on charges of torture.