AMMAN, 15 June 2007 — Jordan’s State Security Court (SSC) yesterday sentenced two men to life imprisonment with hard labor after finding them guilty of attempted infiltration to the West Bank to carry out suicide attacks against Israeli targets, judicial sources said.
“The SSC passed life jail terms on Ikrima Sarhan and Mahmoud Swairki after condemning them of plotting to infiltrate into the West Bank in 2004 for carrying out suicide attacks against Israeli targets,” the sources added. A third gunman who was with the two was killed by Jordanian border troops.
The verdicts can be appealed before the Court of Cassation within 30 days, the sources said. Under the 1994 peace treaty, Jordan pledged not to allow its territory to be used for launching attacks against the Jewish state.
The State Security Court found Sarhan and Swairki guilty of “attempting to infiltrate into Israel with weapons, with the intention of carrying out an armed attack” on unspecified targets in the Jewish state. The two men, standing in the dock in dark blue prison uniforms and sporting long beards, shouted insults at the three military judges as the verdict was handed down. Charges against the third gunman were dropped.
Defense lawyer Abdul-Jabar Abu-Golla said he will appeal the guilty verdicts. Little details were available on the plot. Abu-Golla told reporters that on the day his clients attempted to cross into Israel in 2004, a Jordanian border patrol detected the men near a barbed wire close to the Israeli border. The patrol fired warning shots in the air, the lawyer said. “But they didn’t heed the warning, which prompted the patrol to fire in their direction, killing the unnamed man and wounding Sarhan,” the lawyer added.
