Woman to hang over Jordan bombings
A Jordanian military court has sentenced an Iraqi woman to death by hanging over a triple bomb attack on a hotel in Amman that killed 60 people last November.
The presiding judge, who cannot be named under Jordanian law, said: “The court has decided to sentence to death by hanging Sajida al-Rishawi for conspiracy to carry out terror acts.”
Al-Rishawi, who had pleaded not guilty, remained impassive as the verdict was read out.
Six others who were charged over the attacks and remain at large were also sentenced to death by hanging in their absence.
Among those on the original charge sheet were the three bombers who died in the attacks and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, who was killed in a US raid in June.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq said it carried out the hotel bombings.
Television confession
Al-Rishawi was arrested four days after the attack, during which her husband, Ali Hussein al-Shammari, and two other Iraqis, blew themselves up.
In a television confession after her arrest, she 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 under way.
Hussein al-Masri, al-Rishawi’s court-appointed lawyer, 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.
On one occasion, al-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.