Jordan Times
Friday, May 12, 2006
Witnesses in Aqaba attack trial say defendants visited site
AMMAN (AP) — Witnesses testified on Wednesday
that some of the men charged with firing rockets at two US warships docked in
Aqaba were at the scene a day before the attacks.
A Syrian accused of masterminding the Aug. 19 attacks, Mohammed Hassan Sahli,
53, visited the port four days before the rocket attacks and again the day
before, according to testimony by his business partner, Jalal Darwish.
Darwish told the State Security Court that he accompanied Sahli to the port four
days before the attacks to collect some cars they imported from Korea.
He said he met Sahli’s sons and three other people during the visit, and later
recognised their photos on television after the attacks.
Sahli told Darwish he returned to the port again the day before the attacks, he
added.
Another witness said he was guarding a metal workshop the day before the attacks
when three men approached with a long pipe and asked him to cut it into six
pieces.
“After the attack, when security officials came to the shop and showed me photos
of some of the defendants, I recognised them immediately,” the unidentified
witness said.
Two other metal workers testified that three defendants came to their shops with
similar requests.
Of the 12 defendants charged with involvement in the attack, six pleaded not
guilty last month. The other six remain at large and are being tried in
absentia.
The trial is scheduled to resume on May 17.
The court alleges that Sahli and his brother Abdullah smuggled seven rockets and
timing devices from Iraq to Jordan.
Four rockets malfunctioned. The remaining three missed their targets, killing a
Jordanian soldier guarding a government hospital.
In an Internet statement, Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian fugitive Abu Mussab
Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the attack.
The attempt was the most serious attack on the US Navy since the bombing of the
destroyer USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.
The attack against the US destroyer blasted a 12-metre by 12-metre hole in the
ship’s hull, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39.