Yemenis Protest to Demand Trial of Ousted President

Thousands of Yemenis demonstrated on Wednesday to demand that ousted president Ali Abdullah Saleh be put on trial over killings during a year of protests against his rule.

Demonstrators thronged the road as they headed from western Sanaa to the central Kentucky roundabout, close to Change Square, the epicenter of 2011 protests against Saleh, an Agence France Presse correspondent reported.

"No immunity. No guarantee. Saleh and his aides should be put on trial," demonstrators chanted, referring to the immunity given to Saleh under a U.N.-backed deal that eased him out of office in February 2012.

The demonstration was called by a youth organization that belongs to the Islamist Islah party, to commemorate the death of dozens of demonstrators on September 19, 2011.

Hundreds of southern separatists also demonstrated on Wednesday in the city of Aden against reconciliation talks that appear headed towards agreement on Yemen becoming a federation.

The protesters were insisting instead on the secession of the formerly independent south.

Security forces in the southern port allowed the separatist rally to go ahead, a security official said, after organizers pledged to keep the protest peaceful.

"We demand independence and liberation!" and "No talks, no dialogue!" chanted demonstrators in Al-Arood Square in central Aden.

Factions of the Southern Movement demanding complete secession of the south have boycotted the reconciliation talks that began in Sanaa on March 18.

The talks have stumbled over the future of the state, with Saleh's party rejecting a proposed north-south federation, suggesting a union of several regions.

After the former North and South Yemen united in 1990, the south broke away in 1994, triggering a brief civil war that ended with the region being overrun by northern troops.