A Yemenite appeals court handed down a death sentence this week to Abdul-Aziz al-Abdi for the murder last December of Moshe Yaish Nahari Hy"d, one of the heads of the local kehilloh in the town of Raida, located 70 kilometers (40 miles) north of the capital city of Sanaa. The defense attorney said he would file an appeal with the Supreme Court.
On the same day of the sentencing 16 Jews left the country, moving to Israel. The identity of the new immigrants and their travel route were kept secret to protect the relatives they left behind from harm.
Two months ago a lower court declared Abdi mentally unfit and ordered him released from jail for confinement at a psychiatric institution. He was also fined 50.5 million rials ($27,000). However the victim's father, Yechia Ben Yaish, refused the money and appealed the lenient sentence, arguing that his son had been killed solely because he was a Jew. According to the father, his son had been in the company of four Muslim men at the time he was shot to death by Abdi. Before firing the AK-47 he was carrying, the killer shouted, "Jew, accept the message of Islam."
Abdi, a 39-year-old former air force pilot, confessed to the slaying. The press published a letter Abdi had addressed to the Jews of the town one month before the killing, in which he demanded they convert to Islam or leave the country immediately, or else they would face a bitter fate.
Nahari, who was a 35-year-old father of nine at the time of his death, served as shochet, mashgiach kashrus, mori (rebbe) and gabbai of the local beis knesses.
Yemen, once home to a large, splendid Jewish community tracing its origins in the country back centuries, now has only 200-300 Jewish residents. They are frequently exposed to threats and violence by Muslim extremists and rely on government protection and support.
Some 50,000 Yemenite Jews moved to Eretz Yisroel since the founding of the state.
