Jordan Times
Thursday, February 16, 2006
SSC sentences 9
to death for chemical plot
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN — The State Security Court (SSC) on
Wednesday sentenced nine men, including Jordanian fugitive Abu Mussab Zarqawi,
to death on conviction of plotting a chemical attack in the Kingdom.
The military tribunal declared Azmi Jaiousi, the alleged leader of the group,
Hussein Mustafa, Ahmad Samir, Hassan Samik and Syrian Anas Amin guilty of
“manufacturing and possessing explosives with illicit intent.”
Four other defendants, including leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq Zarqawi, were also
sentenced to death in absentia on the same conviction.
They were identified in the charge sheet as Jordanian Shawqi Ahmad and Ibrahim
Mohammad, as well as Syrian Suleiman Khalid Darwish.
The same tribunal sentenced Wassim Mohammad to three years in prison on
conviction of “plotting actions that were not allowed by the government.”
Jamal Daghidi was handed a one-year imprisonment term as an accessory to the
crime for harbouring a fugitive, but was released by the court after completing
his sentence.
Two other defendants, including Syrian Mohammad Salmah, were acquitted of
charges “because they had no knowledge of the terror plots,” according to the
charge sheet.
Upon hearing of the acquittal of Salmah, several defendants accused him of being
a “traitor” and a “collaborator with the authorities.”
The defendants also accused the tribunal of being “unjust and succumbing to the
West.”
The prosecution charged that Zarqawi instructed Jaiousi and the rest of the
group members to attack the General Intelligence Department (GID), the Prime
Ministry and the US embassy in Amman.
In July 2005, Jaiousi and three other defendants, who belonged to Kataeb Al
Tawhid, admitted they planned to target the government and the GID in 2004 with
vehicles laden with explosives.
Jaiousi appeared on Jordan Television shortly after his arrest in April 2004 and
described how he and other group members bought and manufactured chemical
explosives under the guidance and support of Zarqawi. Zarqawi, who has a $25
million bounty on his head, has already been sentenced to death twice by the SSC
for the October 2002 murder of a US diplomat in Amman and for planning to blow
up a border crossing between Jordan and Iraq.