Jordan’s state security court, presided by a military judge, also handed down sentences of hard labour against two fugitive defendants, ending a high-profile trial whose roots go back to another trial held in 2000.
The 32-year-old former Boston taxi driver’s name is on a US list of “terrorists” published after the Sept 11 suicide airborne attacks on New York and Washington.
He was sentenced to death on several counts, including conspiring to carry out attacks on tourists during 2000 millennium celebrations and possessing and making explosive material as well as automatic weapons.
But he was acquitted of illegal membership in Al Qaeda, although the court president accused him of going to Afghanistan to train on the use of weapons in a camp overseen by Osama bin Laden.
“The court can confirm that Raed Hijazi went to Afghanistan and trained on the use of weapons in a military camp in Jalalabad which was run by Abu Mohsen al Jazairi and Abu Khattab al Masri with Osama,” Colonel Tayyel Raqqad said, reading from a statement.
Fugitives Ahmed Nazal Khalayleh, a Jordanian living in Afghanistan, and Mohammed Haj Saqa, a Syrian living in Germany, were sentenced to 15 years of hard labour each, also for conspiring to plot attacks.
Hijazi reacted angrily to the verdict and lashed out at the judges, comparing them to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon before being taken out by force from the courtroom.
“You are worse than Sharon. He kills Palestinians in Palestine and you kill Muslims here,” said Hijazi, who is of Palestinian origin.
Hijazi was sentenced to death in absentia in a Sept 2000 trial of 28 suspects accused of planning bomb attacks on Christian, Jewish and US tourist targets in Jordan.
Subsequently arrested in Syria and extradited to Jordan, he was retried on the same charges according to Jordanian law.
The prosecution called for the death penalty for Hijazi in December but his defence lawyers pleaded his innocence and insisted he had no connection to Osama’s Al Qaeda network.
The court said he was acquitted of illegal membership in Al Qaeda because he was already acquitted of that charge along with the 28 other defendants in the high-profile Sept 2000 trial.
Hijazi was among six people sentenced to death in the Sept 2000 trial, six others were acquitted of any wrongdoing while the rest were given jail sentences ranging from life to seven-and-a-half years.
From the onset of his retrial last May his lawyers alleged that Hijazi’s testimony was made under torture and dismissed all the charges against him.
The defence team tried without success to summon to court the US consul in Jordan Les Hickman to testify, claiming the diplomat had seen “signs of torture” on Hijazi’s body during prison visits to the American-Jordanian.
But Hickman refused to appear in court, citing diplomatic immunity.
A US embassy representative was present, however, at Monday’s verdict although he declined to be identified or comment on the court’s decisions.
Hijazi’s main defence lawyer Hani Abdel Qader meanwhile told reporters he will appeal the verdict and expressed confidence that the death penalty would be overruled, stressing his client’s innocence.
His father, Mohamed Hijazi, said the verdict was “based on false accusations, unfair and inhuman” and plays to the whims of Israel and the United States.
“This verdict is aimed at pleasing Israel and persuading it that they (Jordanian authorities) are protecting it and to squeeze funds from the United States under the pretext of fighting terrorism,” the retired engineer said.—AFP