Yemen Arrests Southern Separatist Leader

Yemeni security forces arrested Wednesday a leading southern separatist on his arrival in Aden after spending several years in self-imposed exile, an official and an activist said.

Former ambassador Ahmed al-Hassani, who has lived in Britain since 2006 as a political refugee, was arrested at dawn at the airport after arriving onboard a flight from Beirut, said the official requesting anonymity.

Hassani, who is the secretary general of the Southern Democratic Assembly, was "abducted by three men from security and has been taken to an unknown destination," said Nasser al-Khabji, a local leader of the Southern Movement.

"I was among the people waiting for Hassani. Suddenly, we found the security men handcuffing Hassani and leading him away in an unmarked car through a back gate," he said.

Some 300 supporters of the Southern Movement staged a protest outside the airport and chanted slogans demanding independence of the south.

Yemen's southern separatists have for decades complained of marginalization by Sanaa. Though the movement remains fractured, it demands autonomy and in some cases independence.

South Yemen was a separate nation before unification with the north in 1990.