Condition of al-Moayad and aide stable

WASHINGTON, Feb. 21 (Saba) - The health condition of Sheikh Mohammad
al-Moayad and his aide Mohammad Zayed is stable, deputy Yemen's
ambassador to the United States has confirmed.

Under President Ali Abdullah Saleh's orders, deputy Ambassador
Yahya Abdullah al-Showkani and Waleed Mohammad al-Shehari, of the
embassy staff in Washington, paid a visit Thursday to the prison
where the two Yemeni nationals have been jailed for over five years
in Colorado.

The visit, which came with Yemen's efforts to defend the two and
release them as soon as possible, was aimed to see the condition of
the two Yemeni detainees.

Earlier the embassy sent notes to the US authorities asking them to
transfer sheikh al-Moayad to a medical center to care of him. But
the prison administration replied his condition was stable.

Sheikh Muhammad al-Moayad and his aide Mohammad Zayed were arrested
in 2003 in Germany and extradited to the United States.

They face alleged accusations related to terrorist financing.

However, In October 2008, terrorism convictions against the two were
reversed by a US appeal court.

A federal appeals panel in New York in October 2008 overturned their
convictions in a prominent terrorism case once hailed by the Bush
administration as a significant blow to Al Qaeda.

This was based on that sheikh Al-Moayad and his assistant had been
deprived of a fair trial because of errors by the presiding judge.

The appeals court judges found that the defendants, Sheik Mohammed
Ali Hassan al-Moayad and his aide, Mohammed Mohsen Yahya Zayed, did
not receive a fair trial because the trial judge, Sterling Johnson
Jr., allowed the jury to hear inflammatory testimony and other
evidence that prejudiced the defendants' case.