AMMAN, 22 December 2006 — Jordan’s State Security Court yesterday sentenced to death a Jordanian after finding him guilty of killing a British tourist and injuring six other people in September.
Nabil Ahmad Jaoura, 38, was convicted of the charges of carrying out an act of terrorism, which resulted in the death of a person, and the illegal possession of a firearm.
He opened fire on a group of tourists on Sept. 4 at Amman’s Roman Amphitheatre, killing the British national and wounding five other Western tourists and a Jordanian policeman before he was overpowered by security men. Of the five wounded tourists two were Britons, one Dutch, one Australian and one from New Zealand.
“You deserve to die for your hideous crime,” the court’s presiding judge told the defendant. The judge’s name can’t be published under the court’s standing regulations.
“We, who are from the Arabian Peninsula, are masters and we will remain masters. We will never become slaves,” Jaoura shouted back from his metal cage before being led out of the courtroom.
Jaoura, a father of five, carried out the attack to avenge the death of two of his brothers who were killed during the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, according to the charge sheet.
The defendant claimed he decided to launch his attack after the Israeli attack on Lebanon in July.
According to the prosecution, on the day of the incident, Jaoura bid farewell to his wife and children before heading downtown with a loaded gun.
He pleaded not guilty to the charges during the trial.
The verdict can be challenged in the Cassation Court, a judicial source said.
Anti-Western sentiment has traditionally been strong among Jordanians, and in recent years major conflict in the region has several times inflamed public opinion and driven angry citizens to attack Westerners indiscriminately.
The majority of Jordanians are Palestinians who settled in the country after the creation of Israel in 1948, and many of them say Western indifference encourages mistreatment of Palestinians by Israel.
