AMMAN, 1 September 2006 — Jordan’s State Security Court yesterday decided to appoint a lawyer to defend Ziyad Khalaf Karbouli, an alleged Al-Qaeda leader, at the beginning of his trial, judicial sources said.
Karbouli, an Iraqi national whom the Jordanian authorities described as leader of Al-Qaeda in the border area of Trebele, refused to appoint a lawyer, saying he had “no money”.
He instead demanded that the tribunal allow his relatives to visit him “so as to be able to get money to appoint a lawyer.”
Karbouli, 23, disputed the prosecution’s version that he was captured inside Iraq in a joint operation of the Jordanian Army and intelligence on May 10. He told the court that he was kidnapped “from Lebanon on May 6.”
Karbouli is on trial along with 13 other defendants who are still at large. They formed part of the Jihad and Tawhid Brigades, formerly led by the Jordanian-born fugitive Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US airstrike in Iraq on June 7.
Karbouli appeared on the state-run Jordan television after his abduction in May and confessed killing a Jordanian truck driver, Khalid Dosouki, last September and abducting two Moroccan diplomats who were on their way from Amman to Baghdad.
According to an indictment statement published in July, Karbouli is accused of “carrying out acts of terrorism that led to the death of a man, the possession of explosives for illegal use and belonging to an illegal group.”
The trial was adjourned until Wednesday, judicial sources said.
On Wednesday, four Arab suspects pleaded “not guilty” to charges of conspiring to blow up Jordan’s Queen Alia International Airport, 35 km south of Amman. Three other suspects — a Saudi national, Turki Nasser Abdullah, and two Iraqis — are also being tried in absentia for their role in the alleged plot that was due to be carried out in February. The trial was adjourned until Sept. 6.
