- AMMAN: Jordan’s state security court has upheld a five-year prison sentence for a militant known as the mentor of slain Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi.
The Palestinian-born Isam Mohammed Taher Al-Barqawi, better known as Sheik Abu Mohammed Al-Maqdisi, was sentenced last July for “plotting terrorism” and recruiting militants in Jordan to join the Afghan Taleban.
He was tried in a military court with three other Jordanian-Palestinians. Al-Maqdisi’s lawyers had appealed the sentence but their motion was rejected.
Al-Maqdisi has served several jail terms in Jordan. In the 1990s, he shared a jail cell with Al-Zarqawi, who was killed by a US airstrike in 2006 in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi had described him as a mentor.
