AMMAN, 2 June 2003 — Jordan’s state security court yesterday sentenced a Japanese photographer to 18 months in jail for an explosion that killed an airport security guard as he was returning from Iraq, judicial sources said.
Hiroki Gomi was “sentenced to a year and a half in prison for causing the unintentional death” of Jordanian airport security guard Ali Sarhan on May 1 at Amman’s Queen Alia International Airport, one source told AFP.
Initially the court sentenced Gomi to three years in prison but decided to reduce it to 18 months after the family of the victim decided to waive their personal rights in the case and “because he is a foreigner”, the source added. “I am not interested if Gomi is jailed or not ... I hold no rancor toward him,” said Abdullah Sarhan, whose brother Ali was to have been married a week after the deadly incident.
But he said that he was seeking compensation. The military tribunal, whose verdict can be appealed within 30 days, cleared Gomi of responsibility for “the illegal possession of an explosive device,” a charge which can carry a jail term of up to 15 years, the source added.
Gomi’s Jordanian translator Abdel Salam Helwa, also on trial for possession of an illegal explosive, was cleared of any wrongdoing and ordered freed from prison.
The Japanese photographer has been in custody since May 1 when he was arrested at the airport after a device, identified by forensic experts as a bomblet from a cluster bomb, exploded killing Sarhan.
