Jordan Times
Thursday, March 3, 2005
Jordan charges Zarqawi with bombing embassy in Baghdad
AMMAN — The state prosecution on Wednesday charged Iraq's most wanted man Abu Mussab Zarqawi and another Jordanian with plotting the 2003 attack against the Kingdom's embassy in Baghdad last year.
State Prosecutor Mahmoud Obeidat charged Zarqawi,
a fugitive with a $25 million US bounty on his head over a string of attacks in
Iraq, and his suspected aide Muammar Ahmad Jaghbir with “plotting subversive
acts that led to the death of an individual.” Their case was referred to the
State Security Court (SSC).
The August 2003 bombing of the Kingdom's embassy in Baghdad killed 18, including
a Jordanian and five Iraqi policemen, and injured dozens.
Financial losses were estimated at JD181,126, according to the charge sheet.
Zarqawi and Jaghbir were sentenced to death in absentia by the SSC in April for
plotting the assassination of US diplomat Laurence Foley outside his Amman home
in 2002. The US forces in Iraq arrested Jaghbir in May 2004 and sent him to
Jordan.
According to the charge sheet, the two plotted to attack Jews and foreigners in
the Kingdom as well as “Jordanian interests in Iraq.”
It added that Zarqawi ordered Jaghbir to monitor the embassy and he did it for
three consecutive days. The two then told Nidal Arabiyat to fill a car with
explosives, which was driven by a man identified as Abu Ahmad into the building.
The charge sheet gave no details on Arabiyat and Abu Ahmad.
A judicial source told The Jordan Times on Wednesday that Jaghbir's trial is
expected to be held at the SSC within the next few weeks.