SANAA, Yemen — In a surprise move, the leadership of the Houthi movement ordered the release of all detained members of the Baha'i religious minority in Yemen on March 25 and pardoned their leader, Hamed bin Haydara, who had been sentenced to death.

“We order the release of all Baha'i prisoners and announce the pardon and release of Hamed bin Haydara,” Mehdi al-Mashat, head of the Houthi-led Supreme Political Council (SPC), said in a televised speech marking the fifth anniversary of the Yemeni war that broke out March 26, 2015. “The concerned authorities should put all that into effect.”

The National Security Bureau under the government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi had arrested Haydara Dec. 3, 2013, and held him in Sanaa on charges of being a “destroyer of Islam and religion.” In October 2014, after Houthi rebels captured Sanaa, he was transferred to the Central Prison, under the jurisdiction of the Prosecution Service.

On Jan. 8, 2015, officials announced the charges against him, including apostasy, using a false name (accusing him of being Iranian), converting areas of Yemen into a Baha'i homeland and collaborating with Israel. In 2017, the Sanaa-based Mwatana Organization for Human Rights and Amnesty International demanded Haydara's release in a joint statement. He was found guilty in January 2018, and a Houthi court had on March 22 upheld the death penalty against him.