Jordan Times
Friday, September 15, 2006
Verdict in hotel
bombings expected next week
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN — The State Security Court (SSC) is expected to issue a verdict in the
case of alleged would-be suicide bomber Sajida Rishawi early next week, a senior
judicial source said on Thursday.
“The SSC has almost concluded its deliberations and is expected to issue its
verdict sometime after Sunday next week,” the source told The Jordan Times.
Rishawi and seven other defendants — including the late Abu Mussab Zarqawi — are
being tried in absentia for their role in the Nov. 9, 2005 Amman hotel bombings.
They are charged with plotting terrorist acts and possessing explosives with
illicit intent.
Zarqawi’s Al Qaeda in Iraq group claimed responsibility for the triple hotel
bombings that killed 60 people last year.
Four days following the attacks, Rishawi appeared on Jordan Television and
explained how she and her Iraqi husband came to Jordan with two other Iraqi men
to launch terrorist attacks against major hotels.
Rishawi explained on TV how she and her husband, Ali Hussein, each donned
explosive belts and headed to the Radisson SAS Hotel, where he blew himself up,
while the other two men detonated their belts at the Hyatt and Days Inn hotels.
In the televised confession, she said she attempted to detonate herself but the
belt malfunctioned so she left the scene immediately after her husband blew
himself up.
But in court, Rishawi retracted this confession, saying she had no intention of
detonating herself, a claim that was challenged by an explosives expert who
examined her explosives belt and told the court that she did pull the pin to
detonate the device but it failed.
“The belt did not explode because of a technical failure and not because Rishawi
did not know how to use it,” the prosecution witness told the tribunal.
In July, Rishawi’s court-appointed lawyer charged that his client was suffering
from mental problems, that she was misled by her husband and was a victim of
abuse by a group of terrorists.
The SSC prosecutor had asked the tribunal in July to hand Rishawi and the seven
other defendants in the case the death sentence for their part in the Amman
hotel bombings last November.
“These defendants have become a scourge that has spread destruction, corruption
and death in our country,” the prosecutor said.
“The best way to defend Jordan is to get rid of them and hand them the
punishment they deserve, execution,” the prosecution added.