SSC to issue new verdict in Maqdisi case next week

The State Security Court (SCC) will issue a new verdict next Wednesday in the case of three men convicted of recruiting individuals to join Al Qaeda, the defendants’ attorney said.Last month, the Cassation Court overturned the SSC’s June verdict on procedural grounds because the SSC did not list the dates on which the alleged crimes took place. “We attended a court session on Tuesday and the SSC decided to abide by the higher court’s request and set December 21 to issue a new verdict,” defence lawyer Hikmat Rawashdeh told The Jordan Times on Tuesday.In a previous statement, Rawashdeh underlined that the overturning of the verdict was based on a technicality and did not mean his clients would likely be acquitted.The main defendant in the case, Issam Barqawi, also known as Abu Mohammad Maqdisi, was convicted of plotting illegal acts that could 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 of recruiting individuals to join Al Qaeda and were also handed five-year prison terms, but the court decided to halve the sentence “to give them a second chance in life and because they do not have criminal records”.The court found the defendants not guilty of collecting funds for terrorist groups in violation of the Anti-Money Laundering Law.A fourth defendant, Baha Edin Alan, who was tried in absentia, was convicted on two charges and handed a five-year prison term.“Alan was arrested recently and will undergo a new trial as well,” Rawashdeh said.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 the wife of slain Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Mussab Zarqawi 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 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 indictment. The three defendants were arrested shortly after authorities received a tip about their illegal activities, according to court documents.