The Assyrian Democratic Organization
Amman Jordan: Twelve Jordanians of Palestinian origin went on trial Tuesday on charges of carrying out what the Jordanian military court described as terrorist attacks on a Christian church and cemetery in the Arab country.
The 12 men stood quietly in the dock to hear the charges against them, which included shooting a group of visiting Lebanese musicians, making Molotov cocktails they hurled at the cemetery and church, and the illegal possession of weapons.
The indictment sheet said the prime suspect and the group’s mastermind, Shaker al-Khatib, was trained in Lebanon by an alleged al-Qaida member to join the insurgents in Iraq. But al-Khatib, 28, instead returned to Jordan to form a militant cell here. He is originally from Gaza but has lived most of his life in Jordan’s Palestinian refugee camp in northern Irbid.
The indictment does not charge al-Khatib with belonging to al-Qaida, which is banned in Jordan, although it says al-Khatib recruited others for the terror network through the Internet and at mosque gatherings.
The charge sheet said the group decided to attack Christians in Jordan after allegedly discovering that a young Christian boy was sending cell phone messages mocking Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and the Muslim holy book, Quran.
It said the group first attacked a cemetery near Irbid last July, throwing Molotov cocktails inside it, and later attacked a church in the city in the same manner. The suspects were all arrested later in July.
In a separate attack last July, another suspect opened fire on a group of Lebanese musicians performing in downtown Amman. He wounded six people, none of them seriously, before shooting himself in the head.
The suspect, identified previously by police as Thaer al-Weheidi, later died in custody. He was not part of the 12 on trial, although the attack was among the charges against al-Khatib and his group.
The 12 did not enter pleas Tuesday as most did not yet have defense attorneys. If the defendants fail to appoint lawyers before the next hearing, the court will appoint attorneys for them to enable them to plead.
The trial was then adjourned until Feb. 3.
If convicted, the men could be sentenced to death.
Jordan has foiled several terrorist plots by Muslim militants over the last two decades, and has apprehended dozens of suspects who were later convicted and sentenced either to death or to jail terms.
In 2002, Jordan’s military court sentenced several al-Qaida militants to death for the killing in Amman of U.S. diplomat Laurence Foley. In Nov. 2005, the same court sentenced to death an Iraqi al-Qaida-linked female suicide bomber and her associates in the triple hotel attacks in the Jordanian capital that killed more that 60 people.
