Yemen started on Tuesday trying Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-Yemeni Islamic cleric, on charges of inciting the killing of foreigners, including a French expert who was murdered by a guard early last month in Sana'a.

At the trial in absentia, prosecutors charged him with plotting to kill foreigners, including the Frenchman murdered when the guard opened fire at the Austrian energy group OMV office on October 6.

Hisham Muhammad Asim, 19, from Taiz, had links with Al-Qaeda cells, and investigations revealed the shooting was terrorism-related not criminal, Interior Minister Mutahar Al-Masri said Monday.

After the incident, the authorities said personal and criminal motives were behind it.

Al-Awlaki was designated as the most dangerous enemy of the U.S., with the CIA issuing in April a dead-or-alive warrant for him. The U.S. also says Al-Awlaki had links with three of those involved in 9/11 attacks.

Yemen has said it would not extradite him to the U.S. once he is in its custody.