On Tuesday, December 3, 2024, Colonel Turki Al-Maliki, spokesperson for the Coalition Supporting Legitimacy in Yemen, denied allegations made by Houthi leader Hussein Al-Ezzi regarding the receipt of his brother Faris Al-Ezzi's body, calling the claims "misleading."

In a statement reported by the London-based newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat, Al-Maliki asserted that the statements from the Houthi leader, circulated on the group's affiliated websites, were "inaccurate and lacked credibility."

He clarified that the process of recovering and returning bodies took place in June 2023, during which nine Saudi soldiers' bodies and twenty Yemeni army soldiers’ bodies were retrieved, along with fifty-seven Houthi fighters who were killed on the border.

Hussein Al-Ezzi, the former deputy foreign minister in the unrecognized Houthi government, had posted a eulogy accompanied by a photo of his brother on the platform X (formerly Twitter), claiming there would be no mourning to avoid distracting the group's supporters from the war against Israel.

Regarding the timing of this announcement, the coalition spokesperson suggested that such statements are misleading and may have been made for internal reasons concerning the Houthis. He noted that the name mentioned in the statement was not included in the lists provided during negotiations for the recovery of bodies, and it is possible that this individual could be among the casualties of regional conflicts.

Colonel Al-Maliki emphasized that the coalition treats the issue of prisoners, detainees, and the recovery of fighters' bodies as a purely humanitarian matter that should not be politicized by any party, in line with the values of Islam and humanitarian principles.