Jordan sentences killer of British tourist to death

AMMAN, Dec 21 (Reuters) Jordan's State Security court today sentenced a Jordanian man of Palestinian origin to death for an attack on Western tourists in which he shot dead a British man and wounded five people.

The court convicted Nabil Ahmad Jaoura, 38, a Palestinian refugee born in Baqaa camp on the outskirts of Amman, of shooting the tourists who were visiting historic sites in the Jordanian capital last September, and sentenced him to hang.

Of the five wounded tourists two were Britons, one Dutch, one Australian and one from New Zealand.

Jaoura had been charged with ''perpetrating terrorist acts that led to the death of a person, and the illegal possession of a firearm''.

Officials said questioning of the gunman, who was arrested soon after the shooting, showed he was driven by deep anger at perceived Western and US support for Israeli military offensives in Lebanon and Gaza, but had no links with any political organisation.

Jaoura later confessed in court to opening fire on the tourists near the city's Roman amphitheatre and said he was motivated by deep hatred of Western policies towards Arabs.

Prosecutors also say he sought revenge for the killing of his two brothers in an Israeli raid on Lebanon in 1982.

The shooting was the first bloodshed to hit the pro-Western kingdom since triple al Qaeda suicide bombings at luxury hotels in November 2005 which killed 60 people.

Anti-Western sentiment has traditionally been strong among Jordanians, and in recent years major conflict in the region has several times inflamed public opinion and driven angry citizens to attack Westerners indiscriminately.

The majority of Jordanians are Palestinians who settled in the country after the creation of Israel in 1948, and many of them say Western indifference encourages mistreatment of Palestinians by Israel.

REUTERS SP ND1518