Jordan sentenced to death nine Islamist militants

AMMAN, Mar 22: Jordan sentenced to death nine Islamist militants today for their part in 2002 riots in the southern city of Maan in which seven people were killed.

Four of them were sentenced in absentia by a three-man military court which also handed another militant a 10-year prison sentence.

Dozens of others were acquitted.

Among those sentenced to death was Abu Sayyaf, a fiery preacher and alleged al Qaeda sympathiser who is already serving a 15-year sentence he received in 2004 for a plot to attack Westerners.

Maan, a desert city, 250 km south of the capital Amman, is an Islamist stronghold that has seen bouts of civil unrest in the past over fuel price rises and Iraq.

In recent weeks Jordan has speeded up the trial of dozens of prisoners held on charges of plotting attacks on Israelis, Americans and Westerners in the kingdom.

Reuters