A Yemeni court on Saturday sentenced to death a man who killed ten people in a shooting rampage outside a mosque in north-western Yemen on May 30.
Abdullah Saleh al-Kohali, 26, confessed to the crime during the trial in Amran, some 70 kilometres north of the capital Sana'a.
When the trial began on June 8, he said he intended to avenge his honour by killing a man sexually involved with his sister. He said the main target of his shooting was a fellow clansman identified as Belal Qassim al-Kohali.
'He got my sister pregnant three times,' the defendant said.
Belal was among six worshippers who died on the spot after the attacker opened fire outside a small village mosque during weekly prayers on May 30. Four other people died later of wounds they sustained.
Judges refused the defendant's lawyers arguments that he was mentally unstable. The man would be executed by a firing squad if the sentence confirmed by the appeal court, prosecutors said.
The court also ordered the convict to pay 5.7 million riyals (about 28,700 dollars) in compensation to the 15 people injured in the attack.
Officials have said the assailant opened fire from a machinegun as worshippers were performing the prayers outside the mosque in the Bait al-Aqari village of Kohal district in Amran.
In a separate case, the court reopened the trial of a man charged with setting fire to a village mosque in Amran and burning scores of worshippers.
The fire gutted the mosque as nearly 100 worshippers were attending the weekly Friday prayers in Bait al-Ammari village of the Amran province on April 6, 2008.
The court was scheduled to deliver its verdict into the case on Thursday, but it decided to send the defendant, Hamid al-Shoumi, to a physiatrist to ascertain allegations that he is mentally ill.
The attacker sprayed petrol on the worshippers, set them on fire and locked the mosque's only door. Up to 70 people were rushed to hospitals in Amran.
Attacks at mosques are not unusual in this impoverished Arabian Peninsula country.
In 2003, a man attacked a crowded mosque with a bomb leaving three worshippers killed and more than 40 wounded. Four people were killed in a shooting spree in a mosque in 2001.
In the most recent attack, 16 people were killed and scores injured after a booby-trapped motorcycle blew up outside a mosque after the weekly prayers in north-western Saada province on May 2.