Dec. 18
JORDAN:
Zarqawi handed 2nd death penalty in Jordan
Jordan's state security court on Sunday handed Al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi his 2nd death penalty in absentia, for planning to
blow up a border crossing between Jordan and Iraq.
The 2 accomplices in the December 2004 plot were also given the death
sentence.
The prosecutor had demanded the death penalty against Jordanian-born
Zarqawi and the 2 other suspects accused of plotting a suicide attack on
the Karameh crossing with Iraq.
One of the co-accused Dirar Abu Audeh was, like Zarqawi, tried in absentia
but the other, Saudi national Sahed Fuheiqi, has been in police custody
and now faces hanging. His lawyer said he would appeal the ruling.
The sentence was agreed unanimously by the 3 judges who ruled the accused
were guilty of illegally carrying explosives. Zarqawi, the most wanted man
in Iraq where he has a US bounty of 25 million dollars on his head, has
previously been sentenced to death by the state security court for the
October 2002 murder of a US diplomat in Amman.
Released from jail in 1999 as part of a general royal pardon by King
Abdullah II, Zarqawi claimed the triple suicide bomb attacks on luxury
Amman hotels on November 9 that killed 60 people. Zarqawi, in an audiotape
attributed to him and posted on the Internet in November, warned of more
attacks in the kingdom if the government did not meet his demands.
The voice on the tape demanded the departure of British and US troops, the
closure of the US and Israeli embassies and an end to training in Jordan
for Iraq's fledgling security forces. Zarqawi also sought to defend the
hotel bombings, saying his group had information the hotels were being
used by US intelligence agents.
(source: Agence France Presse)
