Man handed 3-year jail term for promoting terrorist ideology

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation upheld a February State Security Court (SSC) ruling, sentencing a man to three years in prison for spreading terrorist ideology through social media in Jordan in mid-2015.

The defendant was convicted of promoting the Daesh ideology to gain more sympathisers through social media and was handed the maximum sentence.

Court documents said the defendant adopted the takfiri ideology in 2015 after following the Daesh group’s activities on various social media platforms. 

“The defendant was convinced that Daesh applied the proper Sharia [Islamic law] and decided to spread its ideology to his friends and neighbours using several applications until his arrest in July 2020,” the court papers said.

The SSC general prosecutor asked the higher court to uphold the sentence, stating the SSC had followed the proper procedures when sentencing the defendant.

The defendant, however, contested the SSC ruling through his lawyer claiming “the SSC did not submit any evidence that he had used social media to spread the Daesh ideology”.

The lawyer also charged that the SSC prosecutor “failed to present any other solid evidence that would implicate his client with the charges”.

The lawyer further charged that his client was “subjected to torture and duress by security agencies to confess to something that he did not commit”.

However, the higher court ruled that the SSC had followed the proper procedures and the defendant deserved the verdict he had received.

The defendant did not “inform the SSC prosecutor that he was subjected to torture while in detention or ask to be medically examined to prove his claims,” the higher court stated.

Therefore, the higher court maintained, “it was clear that the defendant confessed willingly to spreading terrorist ideologies through social media,” the Court of Cassation said.

The Court of Cassation judges were Mohammad Ibrahim, Majid Azab, Hayel Amr, Ibrahim Abu Shamma and Fawzi Nahar.