Michigan - The American Center for Justice (ACJ) said that the Houthi group’s allegations that a number of former Yemeni staff who worked at the US Embassy and some of its affiliated agencies, such as the United States Agency for International Development, the American Language Institute, and other centers, that they are US agents , violate local and international laws and contradict the facts it has verified. The center stressed that the group’s publication of video footages about some people confessing to commit such a thing is not considered legally valid, especially in light of their kidnapping and forcible disappearance and the violation of the law in the procedures followed against them. The center also expressed its concern about the group’s intentions to publish these videos, recalling the case of the death of the former employee at the US embassy in Sana’a, “Abdul Hamid Al-Ajmi,” in May 2021, in mysterious circumstances and the group’s refusal of his family’s request to perform an autopsy on his body to find out the causes of death.

The Houthi group published several video footages of people who worked at the United States Embassy, ​​including the former employee of the USA Embassy, ​​“Amer Abdul Majeed Al-Aghbari,” who was detained by the Houthi group on October 29, 2021. Al-Aghbari was kidnapped in the Al-Asbahi area, and his place of disappearance was unknown until he appeared on the Houthi group’s media TV channels in a video, admitting to cooperating with parties inside the United States of America in order to spread pests and chemicals in crops and agricultural lands in Yemen, in addition to other charges, such as destroying soil, transmitting information about weapons, promoting mixing between men and women, destroying educational curricula, and other charges. 

(ACJ) conducted a video interview with a Yemeni former emloyee at the US Embassy, ​​who confirmed  these accusations were false and contradicted the facts he knew about the work of “Amer Al-Aghbari". He said that in 2013, the tomato crop was threatened to be damaged by the Tuta absuta worm, and Amer made a great effort to convince the American ambassador to fund the fight against the pest in the amount of 9.9 million US dollars. He added that Amer facilitated the entry of a delegation of Yemeni merchants to the United States of America to promote Yemeni coffee at more than one conference. 

The family of Al-Aghbari reported to the ACJ that “the dispute between (Amer) and the Houthi group is a financial one, and more specifically with the group’s Minister of Education (Yahya Al-Houthi). The latter wanted to obtain a check for a sum of one million and eighty thousand dollars, which Amer would obtain to supply laboratories for 150 schools, with funding from UNICEF. One of Al-Aghbri’s relatives said in his testimony to ACJ, “At first, we did not want to escalate the matter after the Houthis stormed Amer's house, arrested him and confiscated 2 cars: his and his daughter's, but after we saw him confessing about committing these crimes, we felt his life is threatened."

In turn, lawyer Abdulrahman Barman, Executive Director of the American Center for Justice, said, "Forcing former staffers of the USA Embassy and some American agencies to confess to these serious crimes cannot be taken into account from a legal standpoint, as it violates the legal rules that do not accept a person’s self-confession. We also don't know the circumstances that prompted these people to confess and what they faced during the investigations; moreover, no video is legally acceptable without the consent of those who were videotaped. Additionally, publishing confessions in this way also violates their rights to privacy and their right of presumed innocence, which accompanies the accused until a final ruling is issued convicting him. In fact, this is tantamount to a death sentence in light of the armed militias’ control over the judiciary.” Barman added, "The Houthi group's arrest of employees working in diplomatic consulates or organizations with a humanitarian goal violates the rules of international law and custom, which guarantees those people the immunity of diplomatic work and work with international organizations, so taking any action that includes investigating or taking information from those people must go through specific and binding legal procedures, and this is what the Houthi group did not do.” 

The ACJ believes that the timing of publishing the video footages coincided with the arrest campaign carried out by the Houthi group during the past week, as the number of detainees has reached 50 employees, including 18 employees from the United Nations. That includes four women, in order to give legitimacy to these arrests and confessions by promoting that workers in UN or international organizations are agents who deserve to be prosecuted. 

The American Center for Justice (ACJ) confirms that what the Houthi group is committing against the staffers of international, relief and non-governmental organizations is nothing but settling scores in favor of the group and putting pressure on these organizations. It is also an attempt to terrorize  those employees in order to discourage them from continuing to provide humanitarian and relief services to millions of Yemenis. 

The American Center for Justice holds the Houthi group fully responsible for the lives and safety of former employees and contractors in US agencies, expressing its concern that the Houthi group’s demonization of these people cannot be believed or passed on.

(ACJ) calls upon the Houthi group to release all detainees from individuals working in international and humanitarian organizations, emphasizing that the USA and the UN are required to exert all necessary forms of pressure on the Houthi group in order to stop its violations against employees and workers in the relief and humanitarian sector and to neutralize this file from the armed conflict and political and personal tensions.