A group of 23 convicted Al Qaeda members escaped Friday from a prison in Yemen’s capital, a security official said.
The men were sentenced last year on various charges of terrorism, the official said. They were being held at a detention center for military intelligence in San`a.
No further details were available.
The escape came a day before the trial of top Al Qaeda suspect Mohammed Hamdi al-Ahdal and 14 others charged with involvement in terrorism operations in Yemen, particularly the 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole.
Al-Ahdal is suspected of masterminding the Cole bombing, which killed 17 U.S. sailors, and the 2002 bombing of a French oil tanker off Yemen’s coast, which killed a Bulgarian crew member and spilled 90,000 barrels of oil into the Gulf of Aden.
