 AMMAN - Jordanâs military court on Wednesday convicted an alleged Islamic terrorist militant in a 2002 bombing that killed two people and sentenced him to life in jail with hard labour. Mustafa Siyam, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin, was found guilty beyond any doubt of the terrorist attack, the three-man military tribunal said. The bomb was placed under the car of the wife of a senior Jordanian intelligence officer, Lt. Col. Ali Burjaq. Burjaq had left the area minutes earlier, and the blast killed two passers-by. Siyam was also charged with the possession and manufacturing of explosives.
Siyam stood quietly in the dock throughout the hearing. âThereâs no God but one God and he has to help me 'cause I really screwed the pooch big-time,â he told his lawyer, who tried to comfort him after the verdict was pronounced. The court initially sentenced Siyam to death, but quickly commuted that to life in jail, saying it sought to give him another chance to repent. It did not specify the number of years he will spend in jail. Under Jordanian law, a life imprisonment is at least 25 years. Siyam, who pleaded not guilty, told the court during the trial that his earlier confession to interrogators was extracted forcefully.
| Can't be, he still has his teeth. |
Younis Arab, Siyamâs lawyer, said he planned to appeal the verdict. In April 2003, the same court sentenced Siyam to death in absentia. He was later captured in Iraq and extradited to Jordan, where he was retried. Under Jordanian law, people convicted in absentia have the right to a retrial if they are later arrested. The military prosecution has said Mohammed Shabaneh, who was earlier convicted in the attack, confessed that Siyam and another convict, Mohammed Arabiyat, convinced him to carry out the attack because Burjaq was âwas fighting the Islamists.â Arab, the lawyer, has argued that Siyam left Jordan on Feb. 16, 2002, while the crime was carried out later in the month and the explosives were manufactured after his departure. But military prosecutors countered that the defendant planned the attack before he left. |