Man gets 9-year jail term for plotting subversive acts

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a March State Security Court (SSC) ruling, sentencing a 27-year-old man to nine years in prison after convicting him of plotting subversive acts against the Jordanian armed forces in Amman in early 2020.

The defendant was also convicted of promoting the Daesh ideology through social media to gain more sympathisers and was handed the maximum punishment.

Court documents said that the defendant adopted the takfiri ideology in 2017 after monitoring the Daesh group’s activities on social media.

“The defendant was convinced that Daesh applied the proper Sharia [Islamic law] and decided to spread its ideology to his friends and relatives using various social media means,” court documents said.

The defendant also attempted to join Daesh and contacted one of its members via their social media pages, court transcripts said.

However, the defendant was unable to join the terror group and “was instructed instead to launch operations in Jordan against the army and churches,” court papers added.

“The defendant surfed the Internet to explore ways of manufacturing explosives,” court papers said. 

The defendant was unable to “manufacture explosives and instead bought a machinegun to carry out his terror plans,” according to court documents.

However, the defendant was arrested by security agencies in December 2019 before being able to carry out any of his plots, court papers added.

The SSC general prosecutor asked the higher court to uphold the sentence, stating that the SSC had followed the proper procedures.

The defendant contested the SSC ruling through his lawyer, claiming that the SSC prosecutor “failed to present any other solid evidence that would implicate his client with the charges”.

“My client was questioned by security agencies without the presence of a lawyer,” the defence charged.

However, the higher court ruled that the SSC had followed the proper procedures and the defendant deserved the verdict he had received.

The Court of Cassation judges were Mohammad Ibrahim, Yassin Abdullat, Hayel Amr, Fawzi Nahar and Nayef Samarat.