After 8 years of enforced disappearance and preventing him from communicating with his family, the Houthi militia released today (Sunday) the former commander of the fourth military region, Major General Faisal Rajab, who is covered by a UN Security Council resolution, after tribal pressure.
The militia continues to hide the last of the leaders included in the UN Security Council resolution, the leader of the Islah Party, Muhammad Qahtan, and refuses to disclose his fate, in addition to thousands of kidnapped civilians, including women.
The spokesman for the government delegation to the prisoners and abductees negotiations, Majid Fadayel, said: Al-Houthi continues to exploit the file of the prisoners and abductees politically and in the media in an inhuman way.
And he wrote in tweets on his Twitter account: We are happy with the news about the exit of Major General Faisal Rajab. In any case, we hope that everyone will leave and that no prisoner or abductee will remain in militia prisons and detention centers.
He added: We demanded and pressured to release Major General Faisal Rajab as part of the previous deal with the rest of the four covered by the Security Council resolution, but the Houthis refused and insisted on not expelling him or exchanging him in any way, and after painstaking negotiations we agreed that the release be in stages so that Major General Nasser Mansour and Major General Mahmoud were expelled Al-Subaihi stipulated that Major General Rajab be among those who will be released in the next deal, which was scheduled for next month.
Meanwhile, the health condition of the two journalists released as part of the prisoner deal (Tawfiq Al-Mansouri and Harith Humaid) deteriorated, and they were transferred to the hospital as a result of the torture they were subjected to in Al-Houthi prisons.
The militia resorts to releasing abductees who are entering a dangerous stage of illness as a result of the torture they are subjected to in its prisons, whether through tribal mediation or through deals to hide its crimes.
Al-Mansouri and Humaid’s admission to the hospital in Marib was met with the fear of many human rights circles that the release of Major General Faisal Rajab came against the background of the militia receiving warnings from doctors about the seriousness of his health condition. Human rights activists reported that the fate of Muhammad Qahtan is still unknown, amid conflicting reports about his assassination and the concealment of his body.
Yemeni human rights activists called on the international community, the United Nations and the International Red Cross to put pressure on the militia to release all abductees and prisoners on the basis of “all for all”, to prosecute those involved in torture crimes, and to ensure that they do not go unpunished.
