Jordan Times
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Three men receive prison sentences on amended charges
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN — In a retrial on Wednesday, the State Security Court (SSC) sentenced
three men, including Mohammad Shalabi better known as Abu Sayyaf, to prison
terms ranging from seven to 15 years for plotting to launch an attack against
American interests in Jordan.
The tribunal handed Shalabi a 15-year prison term for complicity in possessing
explosives with illicit intent.
Amer Sraj was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment on the same charge, but the
court decided to reduce it to 10 years because of the “circumstances of the case
and to give the defendant a second chance in life.”
The third defendant, Saleh Awad, also received a 15-year prison term, which was
immediately commuted to half by the tribunal “to give the defendant a second
chance in life.”
Eleven people were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 15 years for
possessing explosives with illicit intent during the original trial in December
2004.
The Cassation Court upheld the sentences of eight of the defendants and
overturned the verdicts of three, whose retrial was held yesterday.
Shalabi was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison, Awad to 12 years and
Sraj to 10 years.
The higher court overturned their verdicts in July 2006, stating that the charge
of possessing explosives should be further examined by the SSC.
On Wednesday, the SSC decided to amend the charge to “complicity in possessing
explosives with illicit intent” and handed some of them new sentences.
The verdict will automatically be reviewed by a higher court within the next 30
days.
The prosecution had charged the defendants with possessing 40 handgrenades and
detonators with the intent of using them in “military operations against
Americans,” as well as planning to go to Afghanistan for jihad following the
September 11 attacks against the US.
The defendants changed their plans, however, and decided instead to launch
military operations in Jordan against Americans, in particular the US embassy in
Amman, according to the charge sheet.
Their targets also included General Intelligence Department officers, the charge
sheet added.
But the authorities apprehended the defendants before they carried out any of
their alleged plans.
The government has also blamed Shalabi for causing the Maan riots last year,
which claimed the lives of five people. He was sentenced to death by the SSC in
2006 for possessing automatic machineguns with illicit intent in the Maan riots
case.
In a second high-profile case yesterday, the SSC postponed the trial of Ziyad
Khalaf Karbouli, who is accused of murdering a Jordanian citizen in Iraq in
2005, to allow his attorney more time to seek a letter from an Iraqi police
station indicating his client was in detention at the time of the murder.
Last week, lawyer Adel Tarawneh told the court he received an e-mail from
Karbouli’s father that included a letter from Akashat Police Station in Iraq
stating that his client was in custody from September 21 to 24 for not
possessing an identification card, the same time the Jordanian driver was
reportedly murdered.
The lawyer told the court yesterday he still had not receive an official copy of
the letter to submit as evidence and needed more time.
The tribunal agreed and adjourned the session until next Wednesday.
Karbouli, 32, appeared on Jordan Television in May 2006 and confessed to
shooting Khaled Dasouqi, a driver who worked on the Baghdad-Amman highway, and
kidnapping two Moroccan diplomats in Iraq last year.
Karbouli and 13 others, who are being tried in absentia, are charged with
plotting subversive acts that led to the death of an individual, possessing
explosives with illicit intent and belonging to an illegal organisation (Tawhid
and Jihad) affiliated to Al Qaeda network in Iraq.