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Jordan Executes 15 People, 10 Convicted of Terror Charges | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Jordanian police corner off the area where prominent Jordanian writer Nahed Hattar was shot dead outside a court in Amman. Photo: AFP


Jordan executed at dawn on Saturday 15 death row prisoners, the majority of whom were convicted of terrorism charges, Information Minister Mahmoud al-Momani said, in a further break with the moratorium on executions the country had observed between 2006 and 2014.

Ten of those hanged had been convicted of terrorism offences and five of “heinous” crimes including rape, Momani told the official Petra news agency.

All were Jordanians and they were hanged in Suaga prison south of the capital Amman.

Among the terrorism offences were a 2006 attack on tourists at Amman’s Roman amphitheater which killed a Briton and a June 2016 attack on an intelligence service base north of the capital that left five security personnel dead.

Another five were involved in an assault by security forces on a militant hideout in Irbid city in the same year that led to the death of seven militants and one police officer.

The terrorism offences also included the September 2016 murder of writer Nahed Hattar as he stood trial for publishing a cartoon deemed offensive to Islam, while the rest related to separate incidents that go back as far as 2003, including a bombing attack on Jordan’s embassy in Iraq.

Jordan intensified a campaign against suspected extremists after ISIS released a video in early 2015, showing its militants burning to death the fighter pilot as he was trapped in a cage. In response to the video, Jordan executed two prisoners linked to the al-Qaeda terror network.