An alleged Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader yesterday pleaded "innocent" to charges of terrorism before Jordan's State Security Court (SSC), judicial sources said. Ziyad Khalaf Karbouli, an Iraqi, told the tribunal that he was "innocent," the sources said. According to the indictment sheet, Karbouli and 13 others who are still at large are accused of "carrying out acts of terrorism that led to the death of a human being, the possession of explosives for illegal use and belonging to an illegal group." They allegedly formed part of the Jihad and Tawhid Brigades, formerly led by the Jordan-born arch terrorist Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US airstrike inside Iraq on June 7. Karbouli, 23, appeared on the state-run Jordan television shortly after his arrest in May and confessed to have killed a Jordanian truck driver in September last year and abducted two Moroccan diplomats while on their way from Amman to Baghdad.
The Jordanian authorities then described Karbouli as a “leading Al-Qaeda operative” who worked as a customs official on the Iraqi side of the border. In a previous hearing the SSC appointed a lawyer for Karbouli after he said he did not have money to recruit and attorney. He also disputed the prosecution’s version that he was captured inside Iraq in a joint operation of the Jordanian army and intelligence on May 10. He instead told the tribunal that he was kidnapped “from Lebanon on May 6.”
I killed an 'apostate'
| “He pleaded innocent to terror charges Wednesday, but lashed out at Jews, Christians and moderate Arabs and confessed to killing a truck driver he called 'a nonbeliever, a Jordanian apostate.'” |
| “Al-Karbouly also shouted insults, accusing moderate Arab leaders of being 'servants' to Jews and US President George W. Bush, who he said have 'declared war on Islam.'” |