Jordan Times
Monday, December 13, 2004
Trial of chemical attack
plotters begins Wednesday
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN — The State Security Court (SSC) is expected to start trying 13 men,
including fugitive Abu Musab Zarqawi, charged with plotting the first-ever Al
Qaeda chemical attack against vital institutions in the Kingdom, on Wednesday,
judicial sources said.
“The SSC is expected to read the charge sheet, ask the defendants to enter a
plea and enquire if they have appointed defence lawyers to represent them,” a
senior judicial source told The Jordan Times on Sunday.
The 13 suspects, including four men who will be tried in absentia, are charged
with plotting to carry out terrorist attacks, possessing and manufacturing
explosives with illicit intent, possessing an automatic weapon with the intent
of using it illegally and possessing unlicensed guns.
Other charges include belonging to an illegal organisation, Kataeb Al Tawhid
(Battalions of Monotheism), which is believed to be linked to Al Qaeda network
and sheltering a wanted person.
The nine suspect, according to the charge sheet, include Azmi Jaiousi, 36, the
main suspect in the case, Hussein Sharif, 44, Ahmad Abdul Fatah Ahmad, 23,
Hassan Samik, 23, Husni Mustafa, 41, Wassim Abu Ayash, 26, Jamal Daghidi, 29,
and Mohammad Shaban, 19, and Anas Amin, 18, both Syrians. The four other
suspects who are at large, including Zarqawi who is also known as Ahmad Fadel
Khalayleh, are Ibrahim Kasheh, 36, Suleiman Darwish, and Shawqi Omar.
They will be tried in absentia on the same charges.
If convicted of the charges, some of the defendants could receive the death
penalty.
The prosecution charge sheet said Jaiousi left the Kingdom in 1999 and went to
Afghanistan where he received training on how to manufacture explosives and how
to use detonators. While he was in Afghanistan, he met Zarqawi.
According to the charge sheet, Jaiousi and some of the defendants, who belonged
to Kataeb Al Tawhid, decided to “terrify people by using cars laden with
explosives as a means to accomplish their goals.”
The group decided to target several security officers, but was unable to
accomplish its plans and decided instead to launch a rocket attack on the
Israeli Red Sea resort of Eilat from Aqaba Port.
Zarqawi instructed the group to find targets inside the Kingdom, including the
General Intelligence Department, according to the charge sheet.
The sheet added that Jaiousi agreed and asked Zarqawi to “send him money, 10
martyrs, weapons and rockets to accomplish the mission.”
Jaiousi used the money to buy vehicles and 950 gallons of oxygen and other
chemical substances that the group planned to use in the attack.
The group's plans were foiled when — in April and May 2004 — the security forces
seized trucks laden with explosives, apprehended several suspects and killed
four others in a shootout in an Amman neighburhood.