Saudi Arabia accused the United Arab Emirates on Thursday of smuggling a Yemeni separatist leader wanted for treason out of the country and flying him to Abu Dhabi.
Aidarous al-Zubaidi was accused of high treason and removed from Yemen's Presidential Leadership Council on Wednesday, while the coalition bombed his home province after he refused to attend talks in Riyadh.
"Reliable intelligence indicates that Aidarous al-Zubaidi and others have escaped in the dead of night," a statement from the coalition said, detailing a boat-and-plane journey from Aden to Abu Dhabi via Somaliland and Somalia.
The leader of the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) sailed from Aden to Berbera in Somaliland, a breakaway region in the Horn of Africa, after midnight on Wednesday, the coalition said.
He then flew in a Russian-made Ilyushin plane to Mogadishu "under the supervision of UAE officers," before continuing to a military airport in Abu Dhabi, arriving Wednesday evening, it added.
