Career
He escaped to the South after his forces were defeated by then-North Yemeni President and current unified Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. He resigned his cabinet post and went into exile shortly before a failed attempt by former southern politicians to re-establish a "Democratic Republic of Yemen" in 1994. When Jarallah returned to the country in 1995, he developed a reputation as a leading advocate of human rights and political freedoms in the authoritarian political climate of Yemen.
Jarallah was assassinated in Sana"a in December 2002, receiving two shots to the chest.
The assassin was 26-year-old Ali Ahmad al-Jarallah, an Islamist hardliner who sided with Saleh"s government in the civil war. He was arrested immediately following the shooting and in interrogation revealed plots to kill other secular leftist (Nasserite and Baathist) leaders.
He was sentenced to death on 14 September 2003. At the time of Jarallah Omar"s death, he was deputy secretary-general of the YSP. He was buried in the "martyrs" cemetery" in Sana"a, on the orders of President Saleh.