Iraqi woman sentenced to death over hotel bombings

AMMAN: A Jordanian military court on Thursday sentenced to death by hanging an Iraqi female would-be suicide bomber over triple hotel attacks in Amman that killed 60 people and shook one of the most stable nations in the Middle East. "The court has decided to sentence to death by hanging Sajida al-Rishawi for conspiracy to carry out terror acts," said the presiding judge, who cannot be named under Jordanian law.

Rishawi, in her mid-30s and dressed in blue with a black scarf covering her head, remained impassive as the verdict was read out. She had pleaded not guilty.

Rishawi, who was paraded on state television confessing to her role in the November 2005 hotel attacks, was the only one of eight people initially accused to appear in court since the high-profile trial opened in April. 

Among those in the original charge sheet were the three suicide bombers and top Al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US raid in Iraq in June. The others are still at large. They were charged with "conspiring to carry out terror acts by using explosive material that led to the deaths of individuals" and "possession of illicit explosive material".

The Al-Qaeda group in Iraq headed by the Jordanian-born Zarqawi, whose name and organisation are involved in several conspiracy trials underway in Jordan, had claimed responsibility for the bombings.

Security was tight around the courthouse in east Amman for the Rishawi verdict and reporters were prohibited from taking in mobile phones and camera equipment. 

Rishawi was arrested four days after the bombings, during which her husband Ali Hussein al-Shammari, and two other Iraqis, blew themselves up. In the dramatic television confession after her arrest, Rishawi said that she too had tried but failed to activate her explosives belt alongside her husband at the Radisson SAS hotel as a wedding reception was in full swing. 

"Jordanians expect your court to do them justice... with the sentence they deserve which is death," the prosecutor told the state security court in July. "The accused voluntarily wanted to kill innocent people in civilian areas where there were many people who felt secure, with the aim of sowing terror," he said.

Rishawi's court-appointed lawyer Hussein al-Masri tried but failed at the onset of the trial to obtain a psychological evaluation of his client, saying she had a family history of schizophrenia.

In May, the groom whose wedding was devastated at the Radisson SAS, one of the three hotels bombed, demanded that Rishawi be hanged.  "I plead with the court... to carry out the maximum penalty, death by hanging in public," said Ashraf al-Akhrass, who lost his father, his father-in-law and mother-in-law in the attacks. 

On one occasion, Rishawi told the court that her confessions were made under duress and once she claimed to have been tortured, only to retract her statement minutes later and say investigators shouted at her.

Zarqawi has already been sentenced to death three times by Jordan's state security court in connection with the murder of a US diplomat and two conspiracy plots.

 The verdict comes almost a month after Jordan's parliament passed a new anti-terrorism law which the government wanted to fast-track after the hotel bombings. But the law has triggered concern from experts, with the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counter terrorism, Martin Scheinin, saying in Geneva earlier this month that it could be damaging for human rights.