Jordan Times
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Military court renews detention of Islamist MPs
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN — The State Security Court (SSC) prosecutor
on Monday renewed, for the second time, the detention of four Islamist deputies
who were arrested in June on charges of “fuelling national discord and inciting
sectarianism,” a senior judicial source said.
Islamic Action Front (IAF) MPs Ali Abul Sukkar (Zarqa, Second District),
Mohammad Abu Fares (Amman, Fifth District), Ibrahim Mashoukhi (Zarqa, First
District) and Jaafar Hourani (Zarqa, Fourth District) were first ordered
detained at Al Jafer prison, around 250km south of Amman, for 15 days on June
11.
SSC Prosecutor Raed Izmegna’s decision came following remarks the deputies made
praising Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Mussab Zarqawi as a “martyr” and a “holy
warrior.”
The four deputies also visited Zarqawi’s family in Zarqa to offer condolences,
triggering nationwide condemnation.
The MPs pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The move to extend their detention for another 15 days “is a routine procedure
that is usually taken by the SSC prosecutor when the interrogation process is
not complete,” the judicial source told The Jordan Times.
“The detention could be renewed again because the SSC prosecutor is still
investigating the incident,” the source added.
The deputies’ comments angered many citizens, including relatives of victims of
the Nov. 9 terror attacks, which killed 60 and were claimed by Zarqawi.
Government officials said eight families of the deceased filed law suits against
the deputies for the comments.
Abu Fares told an Arab satellite channel that Zarqawi was a “martyr, but victims
of the bombings were not.”
Such a statement “was intended to absolve Zarqawi from his guilt and encourage
others to follow his example in launching terror attacks,” Prime Minister Marouf
Bakhit told journalists on June 11, stressing that the government will not
tolerate any attempts to undermine the country’s stability, security and
national unity.
A poll released Sunday by the University of Jordan’s Centre for Strategic
Studies, revealed that a majority of Jordanians considered a condolence call by
four Islamist deputies to Zarqawi’s family was politically unacceptable. While
national sample respondents differed on whether such a visit was socially or
religiously acceptable, opinion leaders said it was neither.
The Islamic Action Front (IAF) on June 27 called on the government to release
the deputies.
In a statement released in late June, the IAF condemned the renewal of the
deputies’ detention.
“We expected the government to retract its decision and release them because
they did nothing wrong that required their detention, and to put an end to the
crisis within our society,” the statement added.
“The reputation of our colleagues has been tarnished enough with their detention
and accusations of betraying the nation. The government should now reconsider
its decision and release the MPs who should not be behind bars anyway,” Azzam
Hneidi, head of the IAF bloc at the Parliament, told The Jordan Times in a
recent interview.
There are 17 Islamist deputies in the 110-member Lower House.
The deputies do not currently benefit from parliamentary immunity because the
Lower House is in recess.