Man handed four-year prison term for promoting terrorist ideology

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld an August State Security Court (SSC) ruling, sentencing a man to four years in prison after convicting him of promoting terrorist ideology among Maan residents via social media over the past two years.

The defendant was convicted by the SSC of promoting Daesh ideology by convincing residents in his area that it is “a legitimate group”. He was given a four-year prison term.

Court documents said the defendant started following up on Daesh terror group news in 2014 when one of his friends joined them in Syria.

In 2015, the defendant adopted their ideology and was convinced that Daesh applied the proper Sharia (Islamic law) and that the group was “defending Muslims in Syria and Iraq”, court papers said.

“The defendant decided to establish a group on Telegram named ‘Yes Me’ and shared many of the terror group's publications and video clips with people in his area and his relatives in a bid to convince them of their ideologies,” court documents said.

The defendant also joined a group that was affiliated with Daesh to learn more of “ways to manoeuvre via the Internet in a secretive manner”.

The defendant was arrested by security forces in March 2019 who had received information about "his illegal activities", court documents added.

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

Meanwhile, the defence lawyer asked the higher court to acquit his client since “he was subjected to duress to confess to a crime that he did not commit”.

The lawyer argued that the SSC prosecution failed to provide any evidence to prove that “my client promoted terrorist ideologies to anyone”.

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

The Court of Cassation judges were Mohammad Ibrahim, Nayef Samarat, Majid Azab, Ahmad Qatawneh and Mohammad Khashashneh.