Mohammed al-Nazari

Overview

Mohammed al-Nazari, also reported as Hassan Ali al-Baadani or Muhammad Ahmad al-Naziri, carried out a school shooting in Sanaa, Yemen, on March 30, 1997. He began his rampage at Tala'i Private School in the Asbahi township, then continued at nearby Musa Bin Nusayr School.

Background

Mohammed Ahman al-Nazari, who had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, was 48 years old. He had five children, and his daughters attended the Tala'i school.

Nazari alleged that one of his daughters had been raped by the school administrator. No evidence was found of this.

Nazari had been a bus driver for the two schools where he rampaged, but he had been fired for unknown reasons some time before the shooting.

Witnesses described the assailant as a disgruntled former bus driver who had been fired by the headmistress at the Talaeh School. Security officials said he was believed to be insane.

The offence

On March 30, 1997, Nazari waited outside the gates of Tala'i Private School for the headmistress. When she arrived, he fatally shot her in the head.

After killing a cafeteria employee who rushed to cover her body, he wounded a bus driver who tried to block him from entering the school.

He then entered the school building and walked from classroom to classroom, shooting indiscriminately at teachers and students.

He subsequently went to Musa Bin Nusayr School and continued his rampage.

Victims and casualties

The shooting left a total of six people dead and 12 others wounded, with other figures in the record describing fatalities and injuries as follows:

• An Interior Ministry statement said 11 pupils from the two schools and three other people were wounded.
• Another account described killing a headmistress, a teacher, and six children, and also mentioned four schoolchildren and two teachers.
• Court-related accounts described the death sentence being based on killing a headmistress, a teacher, a cafeteria worker, a bystander and two students, and added another student later after the student died of wounds.

Named victims included:

• Asma Abd al-Bari, headmistress of Tala'i school
• Muhammad Yahya al-Ulufi, teacher at Tala'i school
• Husayn Ali Qa'id al-Ba'dani
• Ali Muhammad Muqbil al-Awadi
• Imad Muhammad al-Raymi
• Unidentified student
• Mohammad Ahman al-Nazari (per the record)

Investigation

An Interior Ministry statement described injuries to 11 pupils from the two schools and three other people.

Arrest

Police arrested Nazari after an exchange of fire with security forces in which he was wounded in the leg as he tried to escape. None of the security forces were reported hurt.

Trial

Nazari was sentenced to death after he was declared sane.

Nazari told the court that he worked as a bus driver for the two schools where he rampaged and that the headmistress he killed had fired him.

The British Broadcasting Corporation reported that Hassan intended to kill a headmistress and her husband because of the couple's part in the alleged rape of his daughter.

The Los Angeles Times reported that an appeals court ordered Mohammed Nazari's execution by firing squad and ordered that his corpse be nailed to a cross for three days, with the body displayed near the two schools.

The appeals court ordered that the ruling be ratified by the Supreme Court and the president, Lt. Gen. Ali Abdullah Saleh.

An appeals court retroactively added another student's name to the charge sheet after the student died.

Sentencing and post-sentencing orders

An appeals court ordered:

• Mohammed Nazari to be executed by firing squad.
• His corpse to be nailed to a cross for three days near the scene of the killings.

A subsequent Supreme Court decision approved the death sentence but overturned a lower court's ruling that his body be nailed on a cross.

Appeals

The record includes:

• An appeals court ordered the execution and the body-nailing display, with ratification required by the Supreme Court and the president, Lt. Gen. Ali Abdullah Saleh.
• Yemen's supreme court approved the death sentence while overturning the body-nailing order.

Outcome

Nazari was executed publicly with a single bullet from a sharpshooter on April 7, 1997, in front of the two schools where the rampage took place.

As crowds yelled "God is greatest" and "long live justice," witnesses said the execution was the first public execution in decades. After the execution, his corpse was nailed to a cross and displayed for three days.

Aftermath

After his execution, his corpse was then nailed to a cross and was displayed in public for three days.

The record also states that after the execution Nazari's body was kicked to a pulp by angry citizens and burned.

Nazari's daughters fought the courts against the execution but lost.

The daughter who was allegedly raped committed suicide five years later. The other four children all died in a train accident in 2006.

Other details

An Interior Ministry statement and witness accounts described:

• The schools were closed after the shootings as parents collected their children from classrooms.
• The attacks spread panic among more than 1,000 students aged between six and 18 at Talaeh and nearby Musa Ibn al-Naseer school in the middle class residential suburb of Asbahi, about four miles south of the city center.
• The shooting was described as the first incident of its kind in Sanaa.
• Guns, many of them Kalashnikov automatic rifles, were openly carried in Yemen, and unofficial estimates put the number of firearms at nearly 50 million, three times the population of 16 million.

Prosecutor-General Mohammad al-Badri said: "The prosecution general in the southern part of the capital Sanaa has completed its interrogation of suspect Mohammad Ahmad Misleh al-Nazari who opened fire at random inside the two schools Sunday morning..." He also said: "It was decided to try him Monday at the court for emergency matters at the court of appeal," he said adding that the proceedings will be open.