A Yemeni terrorism court accused freelance journalist and Al-Qaeda analyst Abdul Elah Shaia on Tuesday of working with Al-Qaeda, according to news reports.

Shaia, who is on trial along with his assistant Abdul Karim Daoud al-Shami, has been accused of “belonging to an illegal network” and “supporting the al-Qaeda network” from 2008 to 2010, AFP reported.

The journalist’s arrest comes after Al-Jazeera aired his December 2009 interview with US-Yemeni cleric Anwar al-Awlaki earlier this year, Reuters reported.

Shaia was abducted by security agents and interrogated for several hours in July 2010, before being released, as IPI reported at the time. He has been in custody since August, and one of his lawyers, Abdel Rahman Barman, has reportedly said that his client was visibly tortured.

In addition to the torture accusations, Shaia and his attorneys have also argued that the special terrorism court is illegal because Article 148 of the Yemeni constitution explicitly states that “exceptional courts may not be established under any conditions.”

The trial comes against the backdrop of a deteriorating press freedom environment in Yemen, where the government has used a range of sometimes violent tactics to repress coverage of a separatist movement in the south and an insurgency in the north.

The government also recently set up a special court to deal with press offences, despite the constitutional prohibition.