An Iranian living in Yemen has been charged with trying to convert local Muslims to the Baha’i faith for the benefit of Israel, the Saba state news agency has reported.
The man, arrested last year, sought between 1991 and 2014 to “lure some Yemenis into abandoning Islam to follow this alleged faith,” Saba quoted the charge sheet as saying.
He was named as Hamid Mirza Kamali-Sarustani, 51, and accused of using a false identity to conduct business in Yemen.
“He worked with a foreign country, Israel, through its [Baha’i] Universal House of Justice that serves its interests, to proselytize Baha’ism in Yemen,” the prosecution said.
The Universal House of Justice is the faith’s supreme governing body. It has been based in the Mediterranean city of Haifa since the mid-19th Century, when Haifa was part of the Ottoman Empire. But Baha’i critics like to assert its location in Israel makes it an Israeli agency.
Around 250 Baha’is live in Yemen, where they have historically been allowed to practice their faith freely, the Baha’i organization said.
