Ex-Yemeni official returns from exile
A former Yemeni defence minister has returned home after some 10 years of self-imposed exile since the end of the civil war.
Haitham Qasam Tahar returned to Yemen from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) “where he lived voluntarily for nearly 10 years,” said a member of Yemen’s socialist party on Thursday.
Tahar left Sanaa to live in the UAE immediately after the 1994 civil war which pitted secessionist forces in the south against forces loyal to President Ali Abd Allah Salah.
Salah granted amnesty in May to 16 exiled leaders of the southern secession movement to mark the 13th anniversary of the 1990 unification of Yemen.
The 16 leaders had taken refuge mainly in Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Oman. Five of them had been sentenced to death in absentia.