Jordanian imprisoned for ties with Syria fighters was FSA cook — lawyer

AMMAN — A Jordanian who was among five others sentenced by the State Security Court (SSC) to prison on Monday for having ties with terrorist groups in Syria was allegedly working as a cook for a Free Syrian Army (FSA) group. 

The man, identified as Iyad, returned to Jordan and gave himself up to authorities at the border around three months ago, according to his lawyer, Mousa Abdullat. 

On Monday, the SSC initially sentenced Iyad to three years imprisonment with hard labour and commuted the prison sentetnce to one-and-a-half years.

According to Abdullat, the man was not part of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front, but worked for the FSA — the military arm of the Syrian opposition — as a cook for a short time.

“Because he was a bit old and said he could cook and did not know how to do anything else, that became his job there,” the lawyer told The Jordan Times on Tuesday. 

Iyad, around 32 years old now, had worked as a cook in Amman earlier and was married wih a big family, according to Abdullat, who did not reveal when precisely his client left Jordan, but maintained that Iyad stayed in Syria for a short time, “no more than three months”. 

Iyad returned to Jordan and gave himself up because he did not like the conditions there, Abdullat said, adding that the sentence he received was “not fair”.

Abdullat charged that some of the judges are sentencing defendants to long prison terms, citing a case where a defendant allegedly worked as a nurse at Daraa Hospital and was sentenced to three years in prison upon his return to Jordan. 

The SSC is scheduled to issue verdicts in two other cases on Wednesday, where the defendants, one around 37 years old and the second, also over 30 years old, are charged with using the Internet to promote the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group. 

The defendants, who do not have a college education, are being tried for posting pro-IS videos on social media sites, according to Abdullat, who added that the videos were already carried by other websites. 

Up until Monday, the number of defendants sentenced by the SSC on charges related to using the Internet to promote IS had reached 21, out of 60 already referred to court on similar charges under the Anti-Terrorism Law, Abdullat said. 

Two of these who are to stand trial are under the age of 18, Abdullat said, adding that 175 men were recently arrested for allegedly using the Internet to promote IS while another 150 were arrested and charged for having joined militant groups in Syria.