JORDAN: Jordan's state security court sentenced eight Islamic militants to death yesterday for their role in killing a US diplomat in an assassination blamed on followers of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.
Libyan Salem Saad bin Sweid and Jordanian Yasser Friehat, who were accused of shooting diplomat Laurence Foley on the doorstep of his home in October 2002, were among those given the death sentence.
Chief Judge Fawaz al-Baqour also handed down death sentences on six fugitives in absentia.
Two other Jordanian defendants in the dock, Mohammad Damas and Mohammad Amin, were sentenced to 15 and six years' hard labour respectively. The case was dismissed against another defendant for lack of evidence.
They were all charged with conspiring to carry out "terrorist acts that caused the death of a person and possession of an unlicensed automatic weapon". The court said the defendants conspired to carry out attacks against US and Israeli targets in Jordan, including plans to attack a military airport in Amman used by US transport planes in the run-up to the war against Iraq last year.
Among the six fugitives sentenced to death was Ahmad Fadheel al-Khalayleh, better known as Abu Musab Zarqawi and the alleged mastermind of Foley's murder. Washington says he is a senior al-Qaeda operative.
Zarqawi was already sentenced to death in absentia last year for plotting attacks on Westerners.
Zarqawi led a group of Jordanians opposed to their kingdom's moderate rulers who were drawn to al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan.
Before the verdict, state prosecutor Mr Mahmoud Obeidat had asked for the harshest penalty for "the ugliness of the crime that targeted Jordan's security and stability and that led to negative impact on the country's economy and security".