AMMAN, 21 October 2006 — At least 138 prisoners and detainees walked free in Jordan yesterday after being pardoned by King Abdallah in a special amnesty on the occasion of the Eid Al-Fitr feast, which has been set tentatively on Monday.
The freed people included 129 prisoners convicted to jail terms not exceeding three years and the nine persons who were arrested in April and May for the alleged smuggling and storing of arms from Syria for the Palestinian ruling Hamas group, security sources said.
However, the freed Hamas suspects did not include three people who confessed in May on the state-run Jordan television to have smuggled arms from Syria with the aim of targeting Jordanian intelligence personnel, they added. The charges were then denied by the Hamas group and its Jordanian ally, the Muslim Brotherhood movement, as pure “concoction.”
A Royal Court source refused to attach any political connotation to the decree. The pardons are merely for religious and humanitarian purposes on the eve of the Islamic feast, the source said.
