Some of suspected Al-Qaeda detainees, being tried on charges of forming an armed gang and committing terrorist attacks in Yemen, confessed on Tuesday they returned from Iraq after they were wounded during clashes with foreign troops which invaded the country in 2003.
Husam Al-Amudi, one of sixteen suspected arrestees, said he was arrested in Syria while on his way home from Iraq.
Answering a question of the court chair, Judge Muhsem Elwan, on his confessions, Al-Amudi said he had signed his confessions under pressure and intimidation.
"I have a spinal illness and I was hurt when I was fighting in Iraq," he said.
Al-Amudi affirmed that he and the other detainees had received threats of slaughter as he claimed that Yemeni authorities threatened to hurt them if they confessed, demanding the court to protect them.
In response to Al-Amudi's claims, Judge Elwan asked prosecutors to investigate and report to him about the authenticity of such claims.
A sixteen-member cell suspected of having links to Al-Qaeda and which includes four Syrians and a Saudi from Yemeni origin went on trial on March 11.
They face 13 counts including forming an armed gang and committing terrorist attacks.
The cell members are charged with carrying attacks against tourists and foreign targets in the country, including an attack that killed two Belgians in eastern Yemen in 2007.
They are also accused of being behind attacks on the US embassy and a foreigner residential complex in Sana'a as well as a suicide attack against a military compound and confrontations with authorities in Hadramout.
Last week, the sixteen declared a hunger and a silence strikes in protest at maltreatment at the prison where are held.