AMMAN, July 6: The Jordanian authorities have arrested the former mentor of Iraq’s most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a week after releasing him from jail, for making contact with “terrorist” groups, Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Moasher said on Wednesday.

Sources close to Abu Mohammed al-Maqdissi earlier told AFP he had been arrested at midnight on Tuesday as the Al-Jazeera Arab satellite channel aired an interview with him it had conducted earlier in the day.

“After his release from jail, we received information indicating that he made contact with terrorist groups outside Jordan,” Moasher told reporters.

Maqdissi’s wife said police came to their home in the town of Zarqa, north of Amman, and arrested her husband shortly after midnight.—AFP