AMMAN, 12 July 2006 — The public prosecutor of Jordan’s State Security Court yesterday officially charged three detained Islamist lawmakers with “incitement and sparking national unrest,” judicial sources said. But the public prosecutor ordered the release of a fourth deputy, Ibrahim Mashwakhi, saying that “what he did, did not represent a crime,” the sources said. The three indicted MPs - Mohammad Abu Fares, Ali Abul Sukkar and Jaafer Hourani — were charged under Article 150 of the Penal Code that pertains to national unity offenses.
The four lawmakers, who belong to the Islamic Action Front, were arrested on June 11, three days after they extended condolences to the family of the slain Al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who was killed on June 7 in a US airstrike.
Meanwhile, the United Nations expressed concern yesterday about the worsening health of 200 Iranian Kurds who have been stuck in a no man’s land on the Iraqi side of the border with Jordan.
The group had become more vocal in recent weeks by resorting to demonstrations and limited hunger strikes to push for resettlement abroad, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.
