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SANAA, March 26 (Xinhua) -- A security court in the Houthi-controlled Yemeni capital Sanaa sentenced on Saturday exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi and six other senior officials of his government to death for "high treason," the state-run Saba news agency reported Saturday.
The court called internationally-recognized President Hadi a "fugitive" and convicted him along with six of his top aids of high treason for impersonating a president after his presidential term expired and collaborating with the "aggression state of Saudi Arabia and its allies in the criminal aggression air, sea and land war against the Yemeni territories."
The six aids include Yemeni Ambassador to the United States Ahmed Awadh bin Mubarak, former Foreign Minister Riyad Yaseen, former head of the national security agency Ali Hassan al-Ahmadi, and three other top Hadi advisers.
The court's decision was published on the eve of the second anniversary of Saudi Arabia's air war against the Houthis.
The Houthis and their allies loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh are set to stage a mass rally in Sanaa to mark the event. It could further confuse the ongoing UN-led peace efforts.
Last week, UN envoy to Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed said Yemen's warring parties were refusing to discuss a UN-brokered peace deal amid an escalation of the war that was having a "dramatic impact on the civilians."
In a speech on Saturday, Saleh warned that Hadi and his government should not dream of returning to Sanaa.
On March 26, 2015, Saudi Arabia led a mostly Arab military coalition to fight the Houthi rebels to return Hadi to power and recapture Sanaa.
The Houthis ousted Hadi and seized control of northern Yemen, including Sanaa, in September 2014.
The ground war and coalition air strikes have killed more than 10,000 Yemenis, half of them civilians, and displaced over 2 million others, according to humanitarian agencies.
