YEMEN TO EXTRADITE SPANIARD SENTENCED TO DEATH

Yemen announced it will extradite to Spain a Spanish citizen of Syrian descent who was sentenced to death over terror charges in Yemen, the state news agency Saba reported. The agency quoted Yahya al-Khazan, head of the international cooperation department at the Justice Ministry, as saying that Nabil Nanakli Qusaibati would be handed over after a bilateral extradition agreement was ratified by the Yemeni cabinet and President Ali Abdullah Saleh. Qusaibati, 52, a Syrian holding a Spanish passport, was sentenced to death by a Yemeni state security court in October 1998. He was convicted of leading a group that carried out several bombings, mostly in the southern port city of Aden in 1997. Twenty one alleged accomplices were sentenced to jail terms between 18 months and four years, while five others were acquitted. The death sentence was endorsed by Yemen's Supreme Court in 2003, but the execution was postponed several times after Spanish officials pressured the Yemeni government.