Jordan Times
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
Prosecution asks for
conviction of 15 suspects
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN — State Security Court (SSC) prosecutor
Mahmoud Obeidat asked the tribunal Monday to convict 15 men charged with
plotting subversive acts against Americans and Israelis in Jordan.
The prosecution's closing arguments were made amid threats by the main defendant
in the case, Abed Shehadeh Tahawi, that Osama Ben Laden and Abu Mussab Zarqawi
would “return to establish an Islamic state even if people accuse them of being
terrorists.”
Obeidat told the tribunal that the defendants' confessions were made willingly
and that he asked them if they wished to appoint a lawyer when he interrogated
them and they refused.
In a previous court session all 15 defendants retracted their earlier
confessions, claiming they were extracted under torture and duress. They also
refused to summon witnesses to testify on their behalf.
The only exception was a request by Tahawi to summon Obeidat to the witness
stand, which the tribunal turned down on Monday.
A 16th defendant is being tried in absentia on the same charges.
The group is also charged with possessing unlicensed weapons and plotting
attacks against General Intelligence Department targets.
The charge sheet said Tahawi, lived in Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan between 1979
and 1990, then returned to Jordan and gave religious lessons.
The group planned several attacks against the American and Israeli embassies in
Amman, a security officer, a local journalist, a hotel and school in Irbid, the
director of the Jerash Festival, and an American group that performed in the
Jerash Festival in July 2004.
The court adjourned the session until June 2 to hear the defence's closing
arguments.
Also Monday, the SSC postponed until June 6 the trial of a 34-year-old man who
is accused of plotting the bombing of the Jordanian embassy in Iraq in 2003 and
the assassination of a US diplomat in Amman in 2002.
Muamar Ahmad Jugheiber was sentenced to death in absentia in April 2004 by the
SSC for plotting the assassination of Laurence Foley on Oct. 28, 2002.
Jugheiber was given $44,000 by Zarqawi to finance the assassination of Foley,
the charge sheet said.
In the case of the Jordanian embassy bombing in Baghdad that killed 17 people in
August 2003, Jugheiber pledged obedience to Zarqawi and embraced takfir thoughts
(labelling people as apostates) and the two plotted the deadly attack along with
two other men, the charge sheet said.
“The tribunal decided to postpone the session to allow the defendant's
court-appointed lawyer Fathi Daradkeh to review the two cases,” presiding judge
Fawaz Bqour said.