A Yemeni court sentenced a suspected al-Qaida militant to death Saturday for killing three U.S. missionaries, according to his lawyer. Abed Abdul Razak Kamel, 30, was sentenced in the Dec. 30 shooting deaths of Kathleen A. Gariety of Wauwatosa, Wis., Martha C. Myers of Montgomery, Ala., and William E. Koehn of Kan., according to Kamel’s lawyer, Mahrous Oqba. Donald W. Caswell, of Levelland, Texas, was wounded in the attack. The verdict was handed down in Jibla, 125 miles south of the Yemeni capital of San’a, where the killings took place at the Southern Baptist-run hospital. Kamel pleaded not guilty to the killings and his lawyer told The Associated Press that he will appeal the verdict, saying it violated Islamic law. Court officials were not immediately available for comment. Kamel, who was arrested the day of the shooting, told an April 20 court hearing that he coordinated the attack with Ali al-Jarallah, another suspected Muslim extremist accused of gunning down a Yemeni politician two days before the Jibla hospital attack. Kamel has said he had planned his attack for 18 months, and often consulted with al-Jarallah. He even scouted his target, visiting the remote hospital often. Yemeni security officials say they believe both Kamel and al-Jarallah belonged to a terrorist cell linked to al-Qaida. Full Story
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