Sanaa
(AFP) - Thousands of people gathered in the rebel-held Yemeni capital
Monday to witness the public execution of a man convicted of raping and
murdering a three-year-old girl.
Mohammed
al-Moghrabi, 41, was sentenced to death for the June 25 rape and murder
by a court run by the Shiite Huthi rebels who control Sanaa.
The
gruesome crime coincided with the first day of Eid al-Fitr, the Muslim
holiday that marks the end of the holy month of Ramadan, and sparked
anger among the population.
Moghrabi
was first given 100 lashes and then made to lie flat, his face on the
ground, and killed by multiple gunshots by security forces to cheers
from the crowd.
Police said they escorted him to Tahrir square where he was executed amid fears the angry crowd could lynch him.
The
public execution was widely aired on Huthi-run media in Yemen, framed
as an example of the Shiite rebels' efforts to combat crime in their
areas.
The
Iran-backed Huthis have been locked in war with the Saudi-backed
internationally-recognised government of President Abedrabbo Mansour
Hadi for two years.
More
than 8,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in the
conflict, while nearly 2,000 have died of cholera since April.
The
United Nations has described Yemen as "the largest humanitarian crisis
in the world," with 10 million civilians in acute need of life-saving
aid as the country teeters on the edge of famine.
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