Police cordon off site of terror attack in Jordan
צילום: רויטרס
Jordanian court jails 3 Hamas operatives
Amman military tribunal sentences alleged Hamas cell to up to 15 years incarceration for conspiring to attack Israeli businessmen, Jordanian intelligence officers
Jordan's military court sentenced three Hamas operatives to prison terms ranging between five and 15 years after convicting them of conspiring to attack Israeli businessmen, Jordanian intelligence officers and other targets across the Hashemite Kingdom.
The affair, which was uncovered in April 2006, has weighed heavily on relations between Amman and the Hamas organization and resulted in the cancellation of a scheduled trip to Jordan by the foreign affairs minister for the Hamas government, Mahmoud al-Zahar.
The al-Arabiya network reported that the indictment against the three also accused them of plotting to assassinate the Israeli ambassador to Jordan and staging a raid of the Israeli embassy.
The three - Ayman Naji al-Daraghmeh, Ahmed Abu Rabee and Ahmed Abu Thiyab – are Jordanian citizens of Palestinian origin. They pleaded innocent to all charges, including photographing the Israeli Embassy, the homes of the Israeli ambassador and his staff, and the offices of Jordanian companies dealing with Israeli firms.
Al-Daraghmeh, who received the highest sentence, claimed after his 2006 arrest that he got orders from an unnamed high-level Hamas leader living in Syria. He told authorities where to find weapons caches. The verdict can be appealed.
At the time, Hamas denounced the Jordanian claims as "slanderous lies" and a Hamas spokesman said the organization would never interfere in the internal affairs of another country.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
