3 men convicted of recruiting individuals to join Al Qaeda

The State Security Court (SCC) on Thursday sentenced three men to prison terms ranging from two to five years in prison for recruiting individuals to join Al Qaeda. The main defendant in the case, Issam Barqawi, also known as Abu Mohammad Maqdessi, was charged with plotting illegal acts that would harm the Kingdom’s relations with other countries and recruiting individuals to join Al Qaeda and sentenced to five years in prison. The two other defendants in the case, Iyad Quneibi and Ayman Abul Rub, were convicted only of recruiting individuals to join Al Qaeda and were handed five-year prison terms. But the court decided to halve the terms “to give the defendants a second chance in life and because they do not have criminal records”. The court declared the defendants not guilty of collecting funds for terrorist groups in violation of the Anti-Money Laundering Law. Lawyer Hikmat Rawashdeh told The Jordan Times following the session that “the verdict was unfair and the defence team plans to appeal the ruling at the Cassation Court”. “This is a harsh sentence and our clients did not commit any violations that entails this harsh verdict. They were only collecting money for the poor in Afghanistan,” he said. A fourth defendant, Baha Edin Alan, who was tried in absentia was convicted of the two charges and handed a five-year prison term. The prosecution charged that Barqawi adopted takfiri ideology (labelling others as unbelievers) and used the Internet to promote his ideas among extremist groups and the general public over the past few years. The charge sheet said Barqawi met with a Kuwaiti man and collected funds to help Abu Mussab Zarqawi’s wife buy a house. Zarqawi, who was wanted in Jordan on several charges, including the 2005 Amman hotel bombings that killed dozens, was killed in Iraq in 2007. In May 2010, Barqawi went to Quneibi’s house and they agreed to collect money for Taliban fighters in Afghanistan, the charge sheet said, adding that he also supervised the recruitment of the third defendant, Abul Rub, and provided him with physical fitness training so that he could join fighters in Afghanistan. The fourth defendant, Alan, volunteered to travel to Afghanistan and deliver financial support to Al Qaeda fighters there, according to the charge sheet. The three defendants were arrested shortly after authorities received a tip about their illegal activities, according to court documents.