SAM organization for Rights and Liberties, demanded today, Sunday, May 3, an independent and impartial investigation into the torture of a Yemeni ex-detainee by the Houthis militia, which led to a severe deterioration in his psychological condition, and ultimately to commit suicide.

SAM organization said in a statement that the ex-detainee, Mansour Ali Yahya Al-Quhali, 32, a father of two children from Amran governorate, died at dawn on Sunday after he had hanged himself.

SAM affirmed that Al-Quhali, commit suicide due to the severe torture in the prisons of Houthis militia for six months "in flagrant violation of the laws of war, which requires accountability, in light of the repeated reports on torture against arbitrary detainees and forcibly disappeared.

Al-Quhali family reported that he had been arrested by Houthis militia for more than 3 months in a prison in Dhamar and then transferred to the Political Security prison in Amran, where he was subjected to severe torture, including beating with sticks and rifle butts and then held in a cell with mentally disturbed detainees who had beaten and harmed him all the time.

The family added that Al-Quhali, was also subjected to torture by electrocution, and deprived of food and water, until he was released four days before Ramadan, in a very poor health condition, where his weight decreased in half and he became obsessed with fear of everything around him, as well as amnesia.

SAM confirmed that the Al-Quhali incident should not go unpunished, as documented testimonies of cases of torture and death under torture reveal the severity and cruel methods of torture practiced by Houthis militia.

It stated that torture methods include waterboarding, mock executions, electrocution, tying private organs, depriving of food, medicine, and detention with deranged inmates in narrow cells, all of which caused psychological disorder to many detainees, and the death of dozens of others in militia prisons and those affiliated with the Yemeni government and the Arab Coalition in violation of International agreements against torture and enforced disappearance.

SAM stressed that Yemeni law prohibits torture, and international human rights law also protects basic rights, including the right to protect from arbitrary detention and torture, as the Convention Against Torture defines torture as inflicting pain or intense physical or mental torture, by an official or any other person who acts in his official capacity, for a specific purpose such as punishment.

SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties  and other organizations including the Association of Mothers of Detainees have previously documented the deaths of more than 230 detainees due to torture in Houthis prisons and military and security units in Aden and prisons of the legitimate government, calling on the international community to intervene immediately to stop torture in Yemeni prisons and hold those involved in these crimes accountable .

SAM Organization for Rights and Liberties, Geneva

May 3, 2020