Albawaba.com - Amman
Thirteen Jordanians will appear before the state security court Tuesday on charges of having planned "terrorist acts."
According to Mohammad Dweik, a lawyer specialized in such cases, the defendants belong to an illegal militant organization called the Khalaya, or "cells." He said they faced charges of possessing and fabricating explosives with the intention of using them for illegal purposes.
The 13 men have allegedly been planning "terrorist attacks" on Israeli and Western targets in the kingdom.
The accused, all of whom are around 20 years old, were arrested in January. There had been no previous announcement of their arrests by the government or attorneys.
According to experts, the allegedly incriminating materials are commonly used in households "but need scientific experience to turn them into explosives." The materials were found by the police in the garbage at the entrance of the defendants' house.
According to a previous report by AFP, the main defendant is Bilal Khreissat, a native of the city of Salt to the northwest of Amman. He is charged with heading the terrorist network along with two others.
"The network, the cells, to which the 13 accused are affiliated, is a small group, that does not have any ties with foreigners," their lawyer Samih Khreiss told the agency on July 8.
According to Dweik, the Khalaya is similar in its ideology to Baya't Al Imam and Jaish Mohammad, two terrorist organizations whose members have been arrested and tried by the authorities for conducting or planning terror acts.
Jordan received widespread publicity for its arrest of scores of Islamists in 1999, who allegedly had links to dissident Saudi tycoon Osama bin Laden. Twenty-eight of them were charged with plotting to bomb tourist sites and hotels popular among Westerners during Jordan's 2000 New Year celebration.
Six were sentenced to death last September.
A Jordanian-American held in relation to the case was released to Lebanon in May due to his poor health, according to AFP.
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