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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Man Convicted in Jordan Terror Fund Scam |
| 2004-11-01 |
| Jordan's military court convicted a Jordanian businessman of raising funds to help terror mastermind Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi carry out attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq but acquitted him of conspiring in the actual attacks. Bilal al-Hiyari, 34, was sentenced to six months in jail. The defendant, with a black beard and wearing a navy blue prison uniform, stood silently before Chief Judge Fawaz Buqour, a colonel, as the sentence was read. "You are acquitted of conspiring to carry out terror attacks because specific details of the accusation could not be substantiated with hard evidence," Buquor told the defendant. "Thank you," al-Hiyari responded. Under Jordanian law, verdicts resulting in less than three years imprisonment cannot be appealed. Military prosecutors accused al-Hiyari of having collected unspecified amounts of money to fund attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and terrorist activities in Jordan planned by the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, who last month announced his group's allegiance to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. The indictment said al-Zarqawi recruited al-Hiyari to "raise funds to finance military operations on the Jordanian and Iraqi arenas." It said U.S. forces in Iraq were specifically targeted. Al-Hiyari allegedly met al-Zarqawi in Afghanistan before the Iraq war and "developed a warm friendship because both espoused the similar holy war ideology," the indictment said. It said al-Hiyari visited al-Zarqawi in Iraq in July 2003 on an invitation from al-Zarqawi's spiritual leader, Omar Yousef Jumah, who is also known as Sheik Abu Anas al-Shami. Al-Shami died in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq last month. In August 2003 in Jordan, al-Hiyari allegedly raised around $3,000 to buy a German-made Opel car that was sent to al-Zarqawi in Iraq by an Iraqi associate of al-Zarqawi, identified as Abu-Yaqthan. The indictment did not say where the funds came from. It said later that year and in early 2004, al-Zarqawi twice sent another envoy, identified as Al-Miqdad al-Dabbas, to collect more money, which al-Hiyari could not raise before he was arrested May 16 and the terror plot was foiled. The indictment did not specify how Jordanian authorities learned about the plot. Al-Hiyari pleaded innocent at the outset of the trial on May 16. He has told the court that his guilty confession before the trial had been extracted under duress. |
| Posted by:Fred |