Yemen’s Islah Party has accused the Iran-backed Houthi group over the disappearance of its senior member Mohammed Qahtan , demanding answers 11 years after he went missing.
In a statement posted on social media platform X on Friday, Islah spokesperson Adnan al-Odaini said a committee tasked with determining Qahtan’s fate had been unable to establish the truth after the Houthis handed over a body in Sanaa on Thursday that they claimed belonged to the veteran politician.
The Islah Party said it has so far been unable to verify the identity of the remains or determine the circumstances surrounding Qahtan’s death.
Al-Odaini said “the essence of the case remains unchanged”, adding: “The political and human rights question still stands: Where is Mohammed Qahtan?”
He called on the Houthis to “reveal his whereabouts or release him”, arguing that any statement or proposal that fails to directly address his fate cannot be accepted.
Al-Odaini stressed that no further discussions could move forward until a clear and documented answer regarding Qahtan’s fate was provided.
He said legal and moral responsibility remained with the Houthis, whom he described as “the party that abducted Qahtan” from his home in Sanaa in April 2015.
The Islah spokesperson concluded by reaffirming that Qahtan’s case would remain unresolved, repeating the question: “Where is Mohammed Qahtan?”
According to Yemeni media reports, the remains presented as Qahtan’s were allegedly incomplete, with his son Zaid saying only the lower half of the body had been handed over, while the upper part, including the head, was missing.
Yemeni media also reported that Houthi officials claimed the missing upper part of the remains was the result of an airstrike - an explanation the Islah Party has categorically rejected.
The committee, which includes representatives from Qahtan’s family, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) , Yemen’s internationally recognised government and the Houthis, collected multiple DNA samples from the remains to establish their identity.
The samples will be transferred by the ICRC to specialised laboratories outside Yemen for forensic testing.
The committee was established under an agreement reached as part of a broader prisoner exchange deal between the Yemeni government and the Houthis . In May, the two sides agreed to exchange around 1,700 detainees following months of negotiations in Jordan.
As part of the agreement, they formed the committee to determine Qahtan’s fate before proceeding with one of the largest prisoner exchanges since the start of Yemen’s conflict.
Qahtan was detained by Houthi fighters on 5 April 2015, days after he was placed under house arrest in Sanaa.
A prominent figure in the Islah Party, he became one of the highest-profile political detainees of Yemen’s war.
While the Houthis have claimed that Qahtan was killed in an airstrike, media reports have alleged that he was instead killed inside Houthi detention facilities .
The group has been fighting Yemen’s internationally recognised government since 2015, in a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people and triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
The Houthis currently control Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and large parts of the north, including the western Red Sea port city of Hodeidah , while the internationally recognised government maintains control over much of the south.
Fighting between the two sides has largely remained frozen since a UN-brokered truce in 2022.