AMMAN, 16 December 2004 — The trial of Iraq’s most wanted man, the fugitive Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, and 12 other people accused of plotting a chemical attack in Jordan opened yesterday.
But the case was adjourned to Dec. 22 after the nine other suspects arrested over the case refused to address the court in protest at their detention conditions.
“We don’t want to speak to you,” the alleged ringleader Azmi Jayussi, speaking on behalf of the other detainees, told Col. Fawwaz Bqur, the presiding judge at the state security court.
“We want you first to improve our detention conditions,” the Jordanian national Jayussi told the military tribunal as his co-defendants turned their back to the court, chatted to each other, shouted Islamic slogans and refused to respond when Bqur read out their names.
“Allah-u-Akbar (God is the Greatest). God is our master, you have no master,” the defendants shouted from the cage, as around 50 policemen deployed in the courtroom amid heavy security as well outside the building.
Jayussi, sporting a long beard, allowed security forces to unshackle him and his co-defendants but the group refused to let them remove the chains that bound their feet.
The court is expected to appoint lawyers to the defendants — only eight of whom are behind bars — before the trial resumes next week, as only three of them already have counsel.
