Jail for Zarqawi fundraiser

Jordan’s military court today convicted a terror suspect of raising funds to help Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, the most-wanted militant in Iraq, carry out attacks on US forces there and against Jordanian interests in the kingdom.

Bilal al-Hiyari was sentenced to six months in jail.

The court, however, acquitted al-Hiyari, 34, of conspiracy to carry out terror attacks, saying there was little evidence to implicate him.

Under Jordanian law, verdicts resulting in less than three years imprisonment cannot be appealed.

The defendant, sporting a black beard and wearing a navy blue prison uniform, stood silently in front of the military court’s chief judge, Col. Fawaz Buqour, as the sentence was read out.

“You are acquitted of conspiring to carry out terror attacks because specific details of the accusation could not be substantiated with hard evidence,” Buquor told the defendant.

“Thank you,” the Jordanian businessman responded.

Military prosecutors accused al-Hiyari of having collected unspecified amounts of money to fund attacks on US forces in Iraq and terrorist activities in Jordan planned by al-Zarqawi, who is thought to be a close associate of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

The indictment sheet alleged al-Zarqawi had recruited al-Hiyari to “raise funds to finance military operations on the Jordanian and Iraqi arenas.” It said US forces in Iraq were specifically targeted.

Al-Hiyari allegedly met al-Zarqawi in Afghanistan at an unspecified date and “developed a warm friendship because both espoused the similar holy war ideology,” the indictment said.

It said al-Hiyari visited al-Zarqawi in Iraq in July 2003 on an invitation from al-Zarqawi’s spiritual leader, Omar Yousef Jumah, who is also known as Sheik Abu Anas al-Shami. Al-Shami was killed in a US airstrike in Iraq last month.

In August 2003 in Jordan, al-Hiyari allegedly raised around $3,000 (€2,350) to buy a German-made Opel car that was sent to al-Zarqawi in Iraq by an Iraqi associate of al-Zarqawi, identified as Abu-Yaqthan. The indictment did not say where the funds came from.

It said later that year and in early 2004, al-Zarqawi twice sent another envoy, identified as Al-Miqdad al-Dabbas, to collect more money, which al-Hiyari could not raise before he was arrested May 16 and the terror plot was foiled. The indictment did not specify how Jordanian authorities learned about the plot.

Al-Hiyari pleaded not guilty at the outset of the trial on May 16. He has told the court that his guilty confession before the trial had been extracted under duress.

“I have never been involved in any action that could harm the country’s security … and I have never been affiliated with any party and any group, whether Islamic or non-Islamic, licensed or not licensed,” al-Hiyari said at an earlier hearing.