AMMAN, 17 January 2006 — Jordan’s state security court yesterday sentenced to four years of hard labor a man accused of recruiting fighters to join the insurgency in Iraq but acquitted three co-defendants. Jordanian Abdullah Al-Mrayat, 28, was sentenced on a single charge of “carrying out activity not approved by the government, which jeopardized Jordan’s relations with another country.”
The military tribunal initially sentenced Mrayat to five years of hard labor but decided to reduce it to four because he does not have a previous criminal record. His three Jordanian co-defendants were acquitted for lack of proof. They all initially faced up to 15 years of hard labor.
The four men were indicted in September of planning to join insurgents in Iraq and recruiting fighters but pleaded not guilty at the start of their trial in October. According to the charge sheet Mrayat traveled to Syria in May intending to infiltrate Iraq to join the insurgency but failed to make it across the border. He returned home in June and recruited the three other men.
Jordan’s state security court also upheld death sentences against two militants convicted of plotting attacks against Jewish and Western tourists during the millennium celebrations. Alleged ringleader Khodr Abu Hoshar and co-accused Osama Samar were first indicted in September 2000 of plotting attacks against tourist sites in Jordan during which they planned to use explosives combining sulfuric and nitric acid.
The military tribunal also upheld life sentences against two other defendants, Khaled Mughamess and Saeed Hijazi. The militants appealed the verdict three times but the appeals court returned the case on each occasion to the state security court which upheld its initial verdict each time against the four key defendants.
