Sana'a school shooting


The Sana'a school shooting was a school shooting where 6 people were killed by Mohammad Ahman al-Nazari in Sana'a, Yemen on 30 March 1997. Nazari was convicted for the killings and sentenced to death. He was executed a week later.

Background

Mohammad Ahman al-Nazari was a 48-year-old resident of Sana'a, Yemen, and a veteran of the Soviet–Afghan War, where he had fought in the Mujahideen against the Soviet Union during their invasion of Afghanistan. Nazari's five children attended the Tala'i Private School in the Asbahi neighborhood of Sana'a, where it was alleged that one of his daughters had been molested by the school administrator, despite there being no evidence found to confirm this. Nazari had also previously been employed as a bus driver for Tala'i Private School and the nearby Musa Bin Nusayr School, but was fired for unknown reasons some time before the shooting.

Shooting

Armed with an illegally obtained Kalashnikov assault rifle, Nazari waited at the school for the headmistress and killed her by shooting her in the head. After killing a cafeteria worker and injuring a bus driver who came to help, Nazari entered the school building and walked from classroom to classroom, shooting indiscriminately at teachers and students. Subsequently, he went to nearby Musa Bin Nusayr School, where he continued his shooting rampage.

Arrest and conviction

Nazari killed a total of six people and wounded 12 others before he was eventually injured and arrested by police. After officially being declared sane, Nazari was taken to trial where he was found guilty for the six murders, and sentenced to death the next day. Nazari's daughters had fought against the courts to appeal against their father's execution but lost.

Execution

On 5 April 1997, Nazari was executed by firing squad with five shots in the chest, in an empty lot located between the two schools where he had committed the shootings. After his execution, the initial sentence for Nazari's corpse to be crucified in a public area for three days was repealed, instead the corpse was kicked to a pulp by angry citizens and burned in the streets of Sana'a..
The daughter who was allegedly raped by the school administrator committed suicide five years later, while Nazari's other four children reportedly all died in a train accident in 2006.

Victims