AMMAN, 8 March 2007 — Jordan’s State Security Court (SSC) yesterday started trial of three persons on charges of trying to “assassinate” US President George W. Bush during his visit to Jordan at the end of last November, according to judicial sources.
The defendants-Nidal Momani, 29, Sattam Zawahreh, 28, and Tharwat Ali Draz, 24, are also accused of plotting to “explode” the US and Danish embassies in Amman. The three suspects were ambushed by security men and arrested in the Zarqa governorate, before Bush arrived on Nov. 29, 2006, on a visit to Jordan and a meeting with the Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki.
Also yesterday, the SSC sentenced seven suspects to jail terms ranging between two years and life imprisonment with hard labor after finding them guilty of “attempt to facilitate the escape” of the convicted mastermind of the country’s first chemical attack from jail.
Azmi Jayyousi, leader of the Tawhid (Monotheism) Brigades affiliated with the slain Jordanian fugitive Abu Musab Al-Zaraqawi, was arrested in April 2004 along with several others and sentenced to death in 2006. Jayyousi received an additional 8-year imprisonment, while the SSC passed a life imprisonment on fugitive Mohammad Abu Darwish who was tried in absentia.
