SAN`A, Yemen,(AP) - Two men convicted of trying to kill the former U.S. ambassador to Yemen were ordered released by an appeals court on Monday.

According to their indictment, Hezam Ali Hassan, then 17, and Khaled Saleh, who was 18, followed the car of Ambassador Edmund Hull through the Sabeen area of San'a in 2003.

Hassan — armed with a pistol and two hand grenades — climbed the wall of a store Hull had entered, the indictment said. Guards apprehended him before he could throw the grenades, it said.

Their arrests were announced in 2004.

In March 2006, the two men were sentenced to five years in prison, but an appeals court later reduced the penalty to three years.

The appeals court upheld that sentence Monday and ordered the men released because they had served that time.