13/10/2006
Yahya Hassan Al Rabie and his wife Safia at their home on the outskirts of Sanna.
By Nasser Arrabyee, Correspondent
Sanaa: "My son lived as a lion and died as a lion," boasted Yahya Hassan Al Rabie, father of Fawaz Al Rabie who was killed last week in clashes with security forces as 'one of the most dangerous Al Qaida elements' in Yemen. "But this does not mean I agree with the killing of innocents or bombings that destroy our country," the aged father told Gulf News in his modest house in the outskirts of the capital. "My son Fawaz, as he told me once in prison, wanted to live normally, wanted to get married, wanted to support me and his mother like anyone else but they did not let him do this," he said. In his sixties, he lives with his wife Safia, who prefers to be called Umm Hussan, with their divorced daughter who works as a teacher. "Are you the journalists? It is my uncle, Fawaz, who was killed. It is my uncle who was killed," the six-year-old girl introduced herself to me and my colleague when she came to take us to the house from a neighbouring grocery. She is living with her mother who was divorced because of her uncle Fawaz. Seven of Al Rabie's eight children, four daughters and four sons, were born in Saudi Arabia. The 10-member family came back to Yemen after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990. "Fawaz was always different from his brothers, different in his attitudes, in his talk, he would always speak about jihad," said the father who labelled his son as 'the martyr'. Fawaz was a very brave man, he said, citing a story in which his son visited him in the hospital after the famous jailbreak of the 23 Al Qaida suspects. "Fawaz visited me undisguised in the hospital of the Science and Technology University about four months after the jailbreak," said the father. The father had an injury in his left foot after his son and his 22 inmates escaped from the intelligence prison last February. Amputated "I was put in the prison for three days without treatment and then I kept going back and forth to hospitals and finally doctors decided to amputate my leg because I had diabetic gangrene," he said. His leg was amputated from above the knee. After the family's return from Saudi Arabia, Fawaz, who did not complete his secondary school, had an official employment in the Republican Palace as a clerk. "Then he was encouraged by security officials to travel to Afghanistan in 2000 where he stayed about one year," Father said. "Unfortunately, those who encouraged him to go to Afghanistan were those who were hunting him down when he came back here." Three of the sons were accused of links to Al Qaida. Fawaz was sentenced to death, Abu Bakr to 10 years in prison and Salman has been languishing in Guantanamo Bay for more than four years. The father said his sons Abu Bakr and Salman had nothing to do with Al Qaida at all. "I sent Salman to look for his brother and bring him back from Afghanistan, but the war broke out and he could not come back. He was detained and put in Guantanamo," he said. "For Abu Bakr, he surrendered when his brother Fawaz was arrested here in Abyan and the officials including the President of the republic reassured him that nothing would happen to him," Al Rabie said. "And Abu Bakr's trial was nominal to please the Americans. He did not spend even one day in the prison. The security would only bring him from my house to appear in the court and bring him back after the court hearings. Even when the imprisonment sentence was issued, he was not in the courtroom," he said. However, Abu Bakr was arrested only about two hours after the October 1 operation in which his brother Fawaz and his colleague were killed. "The security soldiers stormed the house and arrested Abu Bakr in his underwear. Now we need him to go and get his brother's body for burial," Safia said. The father, Yahya, said the detention of Abu Bakr was only to avoid any retaliatory act from him. He said if his leg was not amputated he would have gone looking for his son's body and buried it. "Only a few days before the killing of Fawaz, Abu Bakr received a phone call in this house from a senior official saying [tell your brother Fawaz to come back to prison or his head will be cut], and this was very different from all previous calls we received ," he said. With his high school certificate and some computer skills, Abu Bakr was supposed to have a landed a job this month to support his family. The father has misgivings about the story of the jail break of last February saying it was a plan to get rid of his son and his colleagues to please United States. "Anyone who knows well the prison and the neighbouring mosque will never believe the story of escape," he said. "I know it well, it's impossible for anyone to escape."
SOURCE: Gulf News |
