Amnesty International on Wednesday criticized the sentencing of nine men to life imprisonment by Jordan’s state security court for their involvement in politically motivated bombings in March and April 1998.
Jordan’s state security court on Sunday handed down life sentences to eight men convicted of terrorist acts, in a retrial ordered by the kingdom's highest court.
Following the tribunal's deliberations, Colonel Saleh Raggad read out the verdicts against eight of the defendants, all members of the Reform and Challenge organization.
The ninth defendant, a former police officer, also received the same sentence as was handed down by the state security court in 1999 — 15 years with hard labor.
“Amnesty International has repeatedly expressed concern in statements and letters to the Jordanian authorities, including the prime minister, that the initial trial of these defendants before the military tribunal and their conviction were flawed and may have been based on confessions allegedly made under duress,” said the organization in a statement, published on its website.
The organization criticized the trial, saying court procedures “fall short of international standards for fair trial,” and called for a retrial before an "ordinary criminal court.”
The defendants complained that they were tortured and ill-treated.
“But no proper investigation was carried out by the authorities into these allegations,” said the statement.
In April, Jordan's highest court overruled the military court's 1999 sentence and returned the defendants' files for a retrial.
In 1999, the military tribunal convicted nine out of 13 alleged members of Reform and Challenge for a series of attacks in Amman.
The other four were acquitted for lack of evidence.
The defendants were accused of using primitive, homemade explosives in 1998 in a series of bombings that caused no casualties but damaged several parked cars.
The court based its demand for a retrial on the penal code's description of “terrorist acts,” which, according to a judicial source, did not cover the targets of the accused group — parked private vehicles.
The penal code stipulates that terrorist acts are those targeted against public property – Albawaba.com
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