AN APPEALS court ruled yesterday that a man who shot dead four schoolchildren and two teachers should be executed by firing squad and his body nailed on a cross for three days.
"We order that the accused be executed by firing squad and crucified for three days ... to be a deterrent to others," the three judge panel told a packed courtroom.
The ruling, which upheld a death sentence on Monday against Mohammad Ahmad Misleh (48), sparked applause and cheers of "Long live justice" by hundreds of people in the courtroom, some of them relatives of his victims.
"Now we can bury the dead," said Mr Abdul Karim al Olafi, brother of a teacher killed in Sunday's shootings.
The appeals court said Misleh should be executed in the street where the two schools he attacked are located.
Misleh opened fire with an assault rifle on hundreds of children lined up in the yards of the adjacent schools before morning classes. He killed a headmistress, the teacher and four children. Eleven children were injured, four seriously.
Misleh, standing behind the steel bars of a cage, did not show any emotion after the ruling, which now goes to, the supreme court and President Ali Abdullah Saleh for routine ratification.
The court rejected Misleh's claim that his shooting spree was an attempt to avenge the alleged rape of his daughter and the kidnappings of his daughter and son.
It also rejected reports that he was insane or schizophrenic.
Misleh had said the kidnappers, with whom he had a feud over a plot of land, had received approval for seizing his children from the schools.
The court appointed Misleh's estranged wife as guardian of his five children, aged between five and 16, and instructed the prosecution to "safeguard his possessions and money and give them to his children".
The crime sparked calls by Yemeni newspapers for a government campaign to rid the impoverished country of illegal guns, an arsenal estimated by officials at around 50 million weapons.