The Yemeni pro-Iranian group has threatened to execute military detainees, who are loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, on charges of participating in the uprising the latter has called for last month and ended with his death and abuse of his relatives and hundreds of members of his party, according to security sources opposed to Houthi militias in Sanaa.
Meanwhile, the leaders of the Houthi group continued mobilizing people for the fighting front at the level of the provinces and the directorates that fall under its control, in an attempt to assign their ranks on various fronts while the National Army, which is supported by Saudi-led coalition forces continue their progress.
The sources said that the leader of the group, who is appointed deputy coup minister of interior Abu al-Karar al-Khaiwani, gathered Sunday about 600 of the military detainees loyal to the former president in the central prison in Sanaa and threatened to execute them.
The Houthi leader asked the detainees to write down their confessions on the roles they played during the confrontations between the militias and the former president's guard in several political districts in December, the sources added. He told them to include in their confessions the names of the leaders from whom they were receiving direct instructions.
According to the sources, who spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat and requested to remain anonymous for security reasons, the Houthi official gave orders to subject Houthis to torture and extract confessions from them by force.
Leader of the Houthi so-called Supreme Political Council Saleh al-Samad issued what he called a "general amnesty" for the civilian participants in the uprising of the former president, whom the group described as "sedition of treacherous militias," exempting soldiers, most of whom were among the escorts of the houses of Saleh and his relatives and headquarters for his party, General Peoples Congress (GPC).
The Houthi group has released during the past two weeks some civilian detainees and pro-Saleh tribal leaders while activists from the GPC say that about 2,000 members of the GPC are still being held by Houthi militias in secret prisons in Sanaa and cities controlled by them.
