SANA'A: Officials in Washington confirmed late on Thursday that Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former President of Yemen, had left the country after three weeks of medical treatment. President Saleh arrived in the United States following a vote by the Yemeni parliament issuing him and his apparatus an immunity blanket, shielding them from future prosecution. The autocrat's arrival to New York created much controversy as rights activists and the Yemeni-American Coalition for Change accused the Obama administration of harboring a criminal of war, demanding that Saleh be transferred to the International Criminal Court. 2011 Nobel Peace prize winner, Tawakkul Karman, made an appeal to the United Nations, asking Ban Ki Moon, the Secretary General to intervene on behalf of the Yemeni people and demanded that Saleh be handed to the relevant authority, stressing that there was “no such thing as immunity when it came to war crimes and crimes against humanity.” The Pentagon retaliated by saying that since President Saleh was still the official head of state and as such had diplomatic immunity. President Saleh's plane, which was seen landing in Boston Wednesday evening Eastern Time, coming from the state of California, left the east coast on Thursday. And if American officials confirmed that Saleh had left for Addis Ababa in Ethiopia, they refused to comment on whether he was indeed heading back to Yemen. In Yemen, the ruling party has been announcing that Saleh would attend President Abdu Rabbo Mansour Hadi's ceremony on Saturday; as it stressed Saleh wanted to personally pass on the reins of power to his successor. When asked what the former President's plans were for the future, Abdu al-Ganadi, the General People's Congress senior spokesperson said that Saleh would resume his position at the head of the ruling party and become “a regular Yemeni citizen.” BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/xRGr6 Tags: President, Saleh, Treatment, United States Section: Latest News, North America, Yemen
