Rights groups condemn hanging of security detainees

AMMAN, 13 March 2006 (IRIN) – Lawyers and human rights activists condemned on Monday the execution of two prisoners sentenced to death by a military court for the murder of a US diplomat, saying the conviction was dependent on confessions based on torture. Critics condemned the decision to execute Jordanian Yasser Fathi Ibrahim Freihat, 32, and Libyan national Salem Saad Salem bin Sweid, 46, on Saturday, flouting lawyers’ calls for a retrial on grounds that the April 2004 conviction was based on illegitimate evidence, including confessions extracted under duress. "The two had complained that their confessions had been extracted under torture and beatings and they had requested a retrial and a reduction in their prison terms," said Hani al-Dahlah, head of the Jordanian branch of the Arab Organisation for Human Rights. At the outset of the trial in July 2003, the two defendants pleaded not guilty to charges of killing Lawrence Foley, 60, an Amman-based administrator for the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Foley was gunned down outside his Amman home on 28 October, 2002. Al-Dahlah blasted the authorities for proceeding with the execution despite recent pledges to reconsider the sentences after widespread rioting broke out when police took the two condemned men from Swaqa prison, 60 km outside Amman, for execution. Human rights activists and parliamentarians say the authorities had pledged to meet their demands – including the curtailment of arbitrary arrests and improvement of prison conditions – in hopes of ending rioting that broke out in three Jordanian prisons. The clashes, which involved 150 security detainees, were the most serious in recent years. "They (the authorities) want to show that, by enforcing the death sentence, they’re applying an iron-fist policy towards the prisoners so they won’t repeat their rebellion," al-Dahlah said. Lawyers of the two men said confessions taken by the state security prosecutor during their detention were illegal. "All the testimonies were taken by force,” said Mustapha Abdullah, one of Freihat’s lawyers. “Even the appeals court was not ready to look into the pre-trial proceedings." US-based rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Jordan in February 2006 to address the flaws in its criminal justice system, such as making confessions obtained by torture inadmissible in courts. HRW, along with other international rights groups, have long criticised the country's state security courts, which are essentially military tribunals, saying they lack sufficient legal safeguards for fair trials. The Jordanian authorities defended the move, however, saying that the trial followed due legal process and that the hangings came after a higher appeals court quashed a request to reconsider the sentences in November 2005. Amman denies any abuse of prisoners in its jails and maintains that prisoners are treated according to international human rights conventions.