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Yemen pardons convicted pro-rebel Muslim clerics Sat 20 May 2006 1:14 PM ET SANAA, May 20 (Reuters) - Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh has pardoned a Muslim preacher sentenced to death and another who was jailed for backing a rebel movement and spying for Iran, a government official said on Saturday.
Last year, a court ruled that Yehia Hussein al-Daylami, sentenced to death, and Mohamed Meftah wanted to overthrow the Arab country's government and supported radical Shi'ite rebels.
Both were being freed under the pardon, the official said. Meftah's original jail sentence was eight years.
In March, Yemen freed more than 600 supporters of anti-U.S. Shi'ite cleric Hussein al-Houthi in an amnesty that aimed to put an end to two years of clashes, which have killed several hundred soldiers and rebels.
After Houthi was killed in 2004, the government blamed his father, Sheikh Badr el-Deen al-Houthi, for a new round of clashes which erupted in 2005. Later, the elder Houthi agreed to stop fighting.
Yemen, the ancestral homeland of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The rebels are not linked to al Qaeda. Sunni Muslims make up a majority of Yemen's 19 million population, while Shi'ites compose about 15 percent.
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