Almotamar.net - SANAA-The Specialized First Instance Penal court for trying those accused of kidnapping the French tourists in Shabwa decided Saturday to adjourn its sitting to after next Saturday. The adjournment comes to enable the defendants� lawyer to photocopy the case file and to enable prosecution to continue display of evidence.

In the sitting of today held under chairmanship of Qadi Najib al-Qadiri, head of the court and the prosecutor Khalid al-Mawari, the court listened to confessions of the defendants charged with kidnapping the French tourists in the governorate of Shabwa.
It came in their confessions as fixed in minutes of collecting evidence and investigations of the prosecution that on Sunday 10 September 2006 they had kidnapped four French tourists and their Yemeni translator saying that the sheikhs were the ones who distributed their roles where they were divided into two groups; one to watch and the other to carry out the kidnapping under financing by a society concerned with prisoners from Al Abdullah imprisoned in the governorate of Abyan on charge of killing.

They said the kidnapping aimed at sending a message to president Ali Abdullah Saleh for solving the case of the prisoners fro Al Abdullah and that they told the translator to inform the tourists that they were not terrorists rather than having demands with the state and aimed to put pressure on it.
The court had earlier appointed the lawyer Mudhar Abdulaziz al-Samawi for defending the defendants. The lawyer asked to have the file of the case photocopied in order to study it and the court accepted his request.