AMMAN, 15 March 2006 — The public prosecutor of Jordan’s State Security Court yesterday charged 11 militants, including the Jordanian fugitive Abu Mussab Zarqawi, in connection with the Nov. 9 suicide bombings at three Amman hotels that killed at least 60 people and injured more than 90, judicial sources said. The key suspect is the Iraqi woman Sajeda Al-Rishawi, 35, who was arrested a few days after the blasts, which were carried out by three Iraqis, including her husband.
Rishawi confessed over the state-run Jordan television of being part of the suicide gang, but alleged her belt failed to detonate at Radisson SAS, one of the targeted hotels. Also indicted is the Jordanian citizen Mazen Shehadeh, who fled to Iraq along with other five Iraqis after the bombings.
Rishawi is the only defendant to appear before the court during the trial which was expected to start in within a few weeks, a judicial source said. The other 10 suspects are due to be tried in absentia, he added. Zarqawi recently received his third death sentence in Jordan for masterminding the first chemical attack in the country. The operation was foiled when the Jordanian authorities arrested its leader Azmi Jayyousi and other members of the cell before carrying out the attack in April 2004.
Jordan’s military court yesterday convicted seven militants of plotting to attack US forces in Iraq as well as Iraqi police, sentencing them to prison terms from 20 months to four years. The defendants, mostly Jordanians of Palestinian origin between the ages of 23 and 33, were detained in March and May of 2005. They were charged with sending at least six militants to Iraq. The prime suspect, identified as Palestinian Zeid Saleh Al-Horani, 27, and five others were originally sentenced to five years in prison, but the judge then gave them lesser terms to offer the “chance to repent.” Horani allegedly worked with the other members of his Jordan-based cell to recruit militants and send them to neighboring Syria to prepare for suicide bombings.
One recruit was Raed Mansour Al-Banna, the Jordanian who was wrongly blamed for the Feb. 28 bombing in Hilla south of Baghdad that killed 125 people, according to allegations in an indictment sheet detailing the charges. Banna’s family and Jordan’s government have said he carried out a different suicide bombing in Mosul city, and Zarqawi’s group ultimately claimed responsibility for the Hilla attack. Banna and five other suicide bombers are accused of being sent to Iraq through Syria in three batches since the start of 2005.
It was not immediately clear whether the men — who were also charged with plotting to damage relations with Iraq — would appeal the verdicts handed down by the State Security Court, a military tribunal that tries cases dealing with national security.
