Arab News

RIYADH: A Houthi security official in Yemen who had been sanctioned for torture, sexual violence, and cruel treatment of women has died from COVID-19 according to Houthi media, while other media sources questioned the cause of the death.

Sultan Zabin, director of the militia’s shadowy Criminal Investigation Department in Sanaa, was sanctioned by the US Treasury late last year and the UN Security Council earlier this year.

Houthi-run Saba News Agency said the official died “from an incurable disease.” Al Arabiya reported that he died from COVID-19.

A Security Council resolution in February said Zabin was directly or through his authority responsible for using multiple places of detention including police stations, prisons and detention centers for human rights abuses.

The US Treasury sanctioned Zabin in December along with several other officials from the Iran-backed group.

Zabin had “direct involvement in acts of rape, physical abuse, and arbitrary arrest and detention of women as part of a policy to inhibit or otherwise prevent political activities by women who have opposed the policies of the Houthis,” the Treasury said.