In TV Spectacle, Man Convicted of Child Rape-Murder Is Executed in Yemen<br />By SHUAIB ALMOSAWA and RICK GLADSTONEJULY 31, 2017<br />SANA, Yemen — In a televised execution attended by thousands of Yemenis chanting approval, a man convicted of raping<br />and killing a toddler was placed face down in a public square in Yemen’s capital on Monday and shot with an automatic weapon at point-blank range.<br />Some people arrived at 7 a.m., more than two hours beforehand, to get a good view, and held banners<br />that read "Justice has won," and "Rana’s blood won’t be in vain." Mr. Alyafaei said there had been talk that the condemned man was mentally unstable.<br />The condemned man, identified by Yemen’s Saba News Agency as Mohammed Saad Mujahid al-Maghrabi,<br />41, was found guilty by a Houthi-run court of the attack on Rana al-Matan, a 3-year-old girl.<br />Still, he said of the outcome, "as long as it was based on a judicial verdict, it’s fine." Abdulkareem Ziraei, 32, a news photographer, estimated<br />that 10,000 people were in the square for the execution and that the overwhelming majority had approved.<br />While public executions are not new in Yemen, the broadcast of this one, conducted by the Houthi rebels who<br />have controlled the capital for more than two years in a calamitous civil war, was somewhat unusual.<br />At least 10,000 people have been killed in the war between the Houthis, who are backed by Iran,<br />and a military coalition led by Saudi Arabia, which views Iran as a regional threat.
