AMMAN, 7 March 2004 — Jordan’s State Security Court yesterday sentenced eight militants to death, including Abu Musab Zarqawi, a suspected aide to Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, after finding them guilty of murdering a US diplomat at the end of October 2002.
The court also jailed two defendants for six and 15 years and acquitted one of the eleven militants who were charged with plotting to kill Laurence Foley, head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) by shooting him at close range on Oct. 28, 2002, outside his home in Amman.
Only two of the defendants sentenced to death were present at the court while the remaining six were tried in absentia, including Ahmed Fadil Al-Khalayleh, better known as Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordan-born fugitive who is also believed to be the mastermind of attacks against the US-led occupation troops in Iraq. Zarqawi was also part of a 28-member terror cell broken up by Jordanian authorities in 1999. The network was charged with planning attacks on tourist and religious sites in Jordan.
Zarqawi is also believed to be behind a new terror cell discovered by the Jordanian security apparatus last week. Minister of State Asma Khader reported “progress” in the investigations but declined to go into details. Four Syrians and a Jordanian also received death sentences in absentia.
Salem Saeed Bin Suwaid, a Libyan, and Yasser Fraihat, a Jordanian, were sentenced to death after being found guilty of the attack. They were arrested at the end of 2002, and authorities said they then confessed to the crime. However, they told the court they were innocent and had confessed under duress.
According to the indictment, the eleven were charged with “plotting to carry out acts of terrorism that led to the death of a human being as well as the unlicensed possession of machine guns.” The tribunal stopped short of saying the defendants belonged to Al-Qaeda.
According to an audiotape aired on a website Zarqawi urged militants to step up attacks on US forces and what he called their Shiite collaborators. “God has privileged you and humiliated at your hands the mightiest power in history,” he said. “Sharpen your swords and burn the ground under the invaders’ feet. Fight the Americans, fight the rejectionists (Shiites) and the agents and hypocrites,” the tape said.
“We will not let you off, you snakes of evil, until you lift your hands off our mosques and stop shedding the blood of Sunnis... and helping the enemies — the Crusaders and Jews — against Muslims,” the voice on the tape added.
Meanwhile, the State Department said yesterday that Jordanian authorities last week thwarted a plan by members of Al-Qaeda to attack the US Embassy in Amman.
Spokesman Adam Ereli said the plot had been uncovered after the arrests of members of a terrorist cell reportedly linked to Zarqawi who were also allegedly planning to attack Jordanian government facilities.
