a Yemen court of appeal rejected pleas by two men, Hesham Mohamed Ali Saleh and Nabil Abdullah

a Yemen court of appeal rejected pleas by two men, Hesham Mohamed Ali Saleh and Nabil Abdullah Ahmad, convicted of raping Maram Waheeb, a seven-year-old local girl and upheld the earlier sentence to death, pronounced by a local court in Taiz Yemeni governorate on May 28, 2013, on accusations of killing and raping the young girl. Maram, who descends from a poor family from Taiz, was kidnapped on January 22, 2013 and was found dead later on the same day, while traces of torture and rape appeared on her. The two had confessed the rape. The crime was condemned by various social and political parties. “Maram’s mother said she had waited impatiently for this verdict and expressed her delight,” the Saudi Arabic language daily Sada said in a report from Yemen. It said a large crowd of activists and other people who were in court chanted for the judge, adding that the two Yemeni men would be executed by a firing squad.