Jordan News

The Court of Cassation issued its decision regarding a case related to the targeting of churches, military and security sites, and the joining of people to the terrorist organization ISIS.

In the details, the Court of Cassation upheld a decision of the State Security Court to imprison 11 defendants with sentences ranging from (5-15) to temporary hard labor, for it was proven that they agreed to target churches and military and security sites in support of the terrorist organization ISIS, and for three of them to join the ranks of the organization in Khorasan Province, Afghanistan.

The ruling revealed how three accused members of the terrorist cell joined the terrorist organization ISIS in Afghanistan for the purposes of fighting against the Taliban and the American forces.

According to the verdict, the ninth defendant, by following social media pages, was able to contact an ISIS member in Afghanistan, who asked him to go to Turkey to smuggle him to Afghanistan via Iran.

The facts of the case, which were convinced by the State Security Court, stated that the defendants were all campaigners of the takfiri ideology and supporters of the terrorist organization ISIS, and three of them are brothers and two of them are brothers. Zarqa, and two of them were serving a sentence of years in terrorist cases on charges of trying to join ISIS in Syria, and another on charges of promoting a terrorist group.

The decision clarifies that the first accused, by following the news of the terrorist organization ISIS and the publications and videos of military operations and its songs on the communication sites, was convinced that the organization seeks to support the Islamic religion and republished their publications, teachings and videos of their alleged military operations, by creating two pages for him on the website Connect with fake names.

He also subscribed to an electronic application with a number of channels affiliated with the terrorist organization ISIS, and then began promoting that organization with the rest of the group; In order to strengthen each other’s conviction, then all of them started promoting that terrorist organization to their acquaintances and friends.

Although the second defendants had previously been criminalized with the felony of attempting to join the terrorist organization ISIS in Syria, and the eighth with the felony of promoting the ideas of a terrorist group, and were sentenced to temporary labor, after their release in 2018 due to the end of their sentences, they did not stop promoting that terrorist organization, as They came back to follow him online.

Then the accused, the first, the ninth, the tenth, Malik and the eleventh, Ahmed, held several meetings during which they exchanged the versions of the terrorist organization ISIS among themselves, and as a result of their complete conviction in its misguided ideology, they agreed to join the ranks of this organization and fight alongside its elements in the province of Khorasan in Afghanistan against the Taliban movement and the forces American there.

The ninth accused informed the first, tenth and eleventh defendants that he had contacted one of the Afghan elements of the terrorist organization in Afghanistan and agreed with him to smuggle him from Turkey to Afghanistan via Iran.

At that point, the ninth defendant, Ahed, asked them not to leave the country and abide by his instructions until his arrival in Afghanistan. Indeed, at the beginning of February of 2019, the ninth defendant left for Turkey and was able to reach Afghanistan and join the terrorist organization in the province of Khorasan, after which he communicated with the accused Eleventh and assured him that the smuggling line from Turkey to Afghanistan through Iran is guaranteed.

He asked the first, tenth and eleventh defendants to join the ranks of the organization in Afghanistan through the smuggling line he had taken. Indeed, the tenth defendant was able to travel to Turkey under the pretext of treatment, and from there he contacted his brother, the eleventh defendant, and asked him to travel to Turkey and bring an amount of (500) dinars with him. Indeed, a week after the tenth defendant arrived in Turkey, his brother, the eleventh defendant, was able to catch up with him in Istanbul.

Together, we were able to join the ranks of the fighters with the terrorist organization in Afghanistan, in order and coordination with the ninth defendant. After that, the first defendant communicated with his brothers, the tenth and eleventh defendants, and with the ninth defendant through their acquaintances on a social media application, and they were talking to him about the battles and military operations that the organization is waging. Against the Taliban and US forces in Afghanistan.

The ninth defendant asked the first defendant, Sultan, to recruit a number of combatants from Jordan and persuade them to travel to Afghanistan to fight with the terrorist organization in the state of Khorasan. The second, third, sixth and seventh joined the terrorist organization after he offered them the procedures and costs of traveling to Afghanistan to fight with the terrorist organization ISIS, and they agreed to do so.

During the month of January of 2019, the third, fourth and fifth defendants agreed to join the terrorist organization in Khorasan Province in Afghanistan. The third defendant asked them to prepare and wait until a safe way to join was secured. During that waiting period, the fourth defendant offered the third and fifth defendants the formation of a terrorist cell. To carry out military operations on the Jordanian arena in support of the terrorist organization.

Indeed, they agreed and set the goals for those military operations, which are: (the armed forces’ concerns in the Mabrouka area in Mafraq, the Khalidiya Security Center, and the Public Security Fixed Patrol in the Khalidiya area), and in implementation of what they resolved to do, they inspected the Khalidiya Security Center as well as the armed forces’ concerns. The fourth accused was searching for how to manufacture explosives and explosive devices through websites affiliated with the organization to be used in these terrorist operations.

The fourth defendant, Abdullah, was able to obtain videos and publications of the organization on how to manufacture a white explosive. Those videos were watched by the third and fifth defendants, but their arrest prevented them from carrying out their terrorist plot.

The house of the second accused was also raided, but he managed to escape and hide in the house of the first accused. The ninth defendant informed them that it is difficult to travel now.

Then the second defendant asked him to secure his transfer to Iraq to fight with ISIS there, but the ninth defendant asked him to wait and not surrender himself to the security services, and urged him and the first defendant to form a terrorist cell to carry out military operations on the Jordanian arena for the benefit of the Islamic State targeting churches and their pilgrims in Jordan. And that he will present the operations targeting the “nationals of the cross,” as he put it in Jordan, to the leadership of the organization in Afghanistan, and that he will recommend them after obtaining audio recordings of the pledge of allegiance from them.

Indeed, the first and second defendants agreed to the idea of ​​carrying out military operations on the Jordanian arena in support of the terrorist organization, and they agreed that the second defendant would target a church in Zarqa Governorate, while the first defendant would target a church located near Cairo Amman Bank in Mafraq, as well as targeting a center Al-Dulayl security and fixed public security patrols on the Zarqa highway.

The second defendant, Alaa, prepared to secure the weapons necessary to carry out these operations from the Al-Ruwaished area, and the first and second defendants actually inspected those targets until financial support was obtained from the ninth defendant and later secured the weapons after completing all arrangements related to the implementation of these terrorist acts, but the process of arresting them prevented Without that, the prosecution took place.

The court convicted the accused on charges of (conspiracy with the intent to carry out terrorist acts, incitement to commit them, recruiting people to join armed groups and terrorist organisations, joining armed groups and terrorist organisations, attempting to join terrorist groups and promoting the ideas of a terrorist group).