SANAA (Dispatches) — An appeals court on Saturday upheld the death sentence against Bassam al-Haidari who was found guilty of contacts with former Israeli premier Ehud Olmert on the Internet to plot against Yemen.

The court in Sanaa also confirmed a three-year jail term which a lower court slapped on an accomplice, Abdullah al-Mahfal, but it shortened a five-year sentence to three years for a third accused in the case, Imad al-Rimi.
The three men, whose trial opened on January 10 and who pleaded not guilty to charges of making ""contact with an enemy state,"" said they would appeal to Yemen's highest court.
Israel has dismissed the whole case as ""totally ridiculous.""
Meanwhile, up to 40 prisoners have escaped after a bomb exploded at a prison in the southern Yemeni city of Daleh, police say.
They said a dispute broke out on Thursday between policemen and a group of prison inmates, identified as sympathizers of a secessionist movement and arrested for taking part in a protest in Daleh.
The detained protesters hurled a bomb, police said, but members of the Movement for the Independence of Southern Yemen told AFP news agency that it was thrown by police.
Photo: Defendant Bassam al-Haidari. (Photo: AFP)