UAE Officials Reportedly being Sought over Actions in Yemen

The Reuters news agency says that a law firm in Britain has asked authorities there to detain officials from the United Arab Emirates over alleged war crimes committed in Yemen. The request, which was submitted on Wednesday, is also addressed to authorities in the United States and Turkey. It alleges what Reuters describes as “torture and war crimes” committed in 2015 and 2019 by the UAE and “mercenaries,” and was filed on behalf of a journalist and a man who says his brother was killed in the war-torn country. The suspects are unnamed “political and military leaders from the UAE who reside in the UAE and the United States, but who travel to Britain regularly.” Until recently, the UAE was a senior member of the Saudi-led coalition fighting against Houthi rebels on behalf of Yemen’s government, which was pushed out of the capital Sanaa by the Iran-backed Houthis in January 2015. The resulting fighting has left the largely impoverished country on the brink of what the United Nationals has called a humanitarian catastrophe due to chronic shortages of food and medicine.