Presidential Leadership Council says collaboration with Houthis can carry the death penalty

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ADEN, Yemen — Yemen’s Presidential Leadership Council warned on Tuesday that spying for the Houthis or financing them is a criminal offence, and ordered prosecutors to act.

The council said penalties for some crimes against state security reach the death penalty.

It named no suspects. It gave no figure for the number of cases open.

The account rests on the council’s own announcement, carried on Tuesday by Saba, the news agency run by the internationally recognised government, and relayed a day later by the Yemeni outlet Yemen Monitor. No independent confirmation of its contents has been published.

The council directed security and military agencies, the judiciary, judicial enforcement officers and the public and military prosecutions to take urgent legal measures against anyone involved in espionage or support for the Houthi movement.

Agencies should move promptly where credible evidence exists, the statement said. They should collect and preserve that evidence and work under the supervision of prosecutors.

Investigations should finish without undue delay. Cases carrying sufficient evidence should go to the courts.

The statement listed acts that threaten Yemen’s security and independence, weakening the armed forces, disclosing defence secrets, aiding the enemy, and spying for a hostile state that supports what the council called a terrorist militia.

The Houthi movement rejects that description.

Officials, military officers and security personnel were warned against using their positions or state resources to help the group.

“No official position, military rank or personal influence grants immunity from legal accountability,” the statement said.

Citizens and state employees were asked to report suspected espionage or collaboration through official channels.

Authorities should make reporting easier, the council said. It asked them to keep the identities of whistleblowers and witnesses confidential and to protect them under the law.

The council called for greater vigilance at vital facilities, tighter handling of sensitive information, and coordination between agencies to prevent infiltration.

It praised the armed forces and the security services operating in governorates held by the government.

Yemen Monitor reported that the statement followed an Interior Ministry announcement that it had broken up Houthi-affiliated cells in Aden, Lahj and Abyan. The ministry said the cells had been trained by Iranian experts. Yemen Herald could not independently verify that account.

The Presidential Leadership Council is an eight-member body chaired by Rashad al-Alimi. It took over executive authority in 2022, when Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi ceded power to it, according to a House of Commons Library briefing published on 5 October.

The directive lands in a year of renewed fighting.

Yemen’s war is generally dated to the Houthis’ capture of Sanaa in 2014, the briefing said. A Saudi-led coalition intervened the following year.

A six-month national ceasefire took hold in 2022 and front lines stayed largely stable afterwards. That changed this year.

The Houthis announced a new phase against Saudi Arabia in June, aimed at lifting the blockade of ports they control, according to the briefing. In July they declared a sea and air blockade on Saudi Arabia and launched drone and missile attacks on Saudi sites, their first since 2023.

A prisoner exchange planned for July stalled.

Saudi Arabia resumed air strikes in mid-2026, its first since 2022, and assembled a maritime coalition, the briefing said. Houthi forces then took several stretches of Red Sea coastline.

The Bab al-Mandab strait, which the briefing said carries about 7% of the world’s seaborne oil, is now disputed.

Britain announced defensive support for Saudi Arabia in September, including one RAF Voyager refuelling aircraft.

The government’s southern flank shifted earlier in the year. A Saudi-backed counter-offensive in January reversed gains made by the Southern Transitional Council, which was founded in 2017. The council’s ministers were removed from the Presidential Leadership Council, and the council announced its own dissolution, a step some of its members disputed. It later relaunched under the name Transitional Council of South Arabia.

The United Arab Emirates withdrew most of its forces in 2020 and said in January that it would pull out those remaining, the briefing said.

Espionage cases are running on both sides of the front line.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said on 6 October that Houthi authorities had referred at least eight people working in human rights and humanitarian roles for criminal prosecution since 18 August. They include two United Nations employees and a United Nations consultant.

The charges are espionage and aiding the enemy under articles 127 and 128 of Yemen’s penal code, the two groups said. Both carry the death penalty.

The cases are handled by the Specialized Criminal Prosecution in Sanaa.

Seventy-two United Nations staff, all Yemeni nationals, remained in Houthi detention as of 5 October, according to the two organisations. They said more than 100 United Nations and civil society workers had been detained since 31 May 2024.

Niku Jafarnia, Human Rights Watch’s Yemen and Bahrain researcher, said detainees faced “the risk of the death penalty”. Both groups called for the prosecutions to stop.

Humanitarian need across the country remains high. The United Nations humanitarian response plan for 2026 put the number of people needing assistance at more than 22 million, with 18.3 million acutely food insecure and 5.2 million displaced.

The plan recorded more than 2.2 million children under five as acutely malnourished, 516,157 of them severely.

It sought 2.16 billion dollars to reach 12 million people.