Death for Jordan bomb attack

It was the first bomb in the Jordanian capital for 10 years

A military court in Jordan has sentenced three Jordanian men to death for a bombing that killed two people last year.

Two of the accused have never been caught and were sentenced in their absence.

Four others were given prison terms ranging from one year to life.

The men were convicted of planting a bomb under the car of the wife of an anti-terrorism officer, Lt-Colonel Ali Burjaq, in the capital Amman in February 2002.

The bomb killed two passers-by but Colonel Burjaq escaped unharmed, having driven away from the area minutes beforehand.

It was the first such incident in Jordan for 10 years.

The court prosecutor had urged the court to deliver heavy sentences "for the ugliest crimes committed against Jordan and humanity at large".

Those condemned are Mohamad Arafat, arrested in April last year, Mustafa Siam and Ahed Khreissat.

Fought in Afghanistan

Arafat and Jamil were alleged to have received military training from Muslim fundamentalists during several years spent in Afghanistan.

They fought for the Taleban in Afghanistan, and returned to Jordan at the end of 2001.

A young Egyptian and an Iraqi were killed as their bomb ripped through the Jabal Amman neighbourhood of the Jordanian capital.

Col Burjak, the intended victim, led an investigation which resulted in the trial of 28 men for conspiracy to carry out terror attacks on US and Israeli targets in Jordan during the millennium celebrations.

One of them, a Jordanian-American man, was sentenced to death but cleared of having links to Osama Bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.