NAN-F-43
Murder
Amman, July 28, 2017 (dpa/NAN) Jordan has charged an Israeli embassy guard with murder for shooting dead two Jordanians at the embassy compound in Amman last week, Jordan’s official news agency Petra reported on Friday.
Prosecutors charged the guard with murder and illegal possession of a firearm, Chief Prosecutor Akram Masaadeh told Petra.
The shooting which happened on Sunday sparked a diplomatic crisis after Israel said that the guard, who shot and killed an alleged Jordanian attacker and a bystander, had acted in self-defence.
The guard, along with other embassy staff, had returned to Israel on Monday.
Masaadeh said the guard had diplomatic and judicial immunity.
“(But) the immunity that the murderer enjoys is a mere procedural immunity that does not exempt him from standing trial before his country’s courts.
“Jordan will send the findings of its investigations to Israel so that it can “try the murderer,” Masaadeh said.
On Thursday, Jordanian King Abdullah II demanded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put the guard on trial, warning that the kingdom’s ties with Israel would be affected by its handling of the case.
Netanyahu welcomed the guard after his return to Israel and was seen in a photo embracing him, in a gesture that angered Jordanians.
Israel had earlier said that the guard had shot the 17-year-old Jordanian worker after the teenager stabbed him with a screwdriver.
Jordan said the teen was shot by the Israeli guard after a quarrel, but did not confirm the Israeli version of the incident.
The Jordanian worker was installing furniture at the Israeli embassy compound.
A second Jordanian bystander was wounded in the incident and later died.
The incident came amid tensions between Israel and the Muslim world over Israeli restrictions on worship at al-Aqsa Mosque, Islam’s third holiest site, in Jerusalem following a deadly attack in the compound that houses the mosque.
The Muslim religious authority which administers the site – known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as the Temple Mount – is funded and controlled by Jordan.
A few hundred Jordanians on Friday held an anti-Israel protest in Amman after they performed the noon prayers in a nearby mosque.
The protesters demanded the closure of the Israeli embassy in Amman and the annulment of the peace treaty between the two countries.
The rally was held some kilometres away from the compound housing the Israeli embassy.
“Down with the peace accord,” the protesters chanted as police cordoned them off in order to prevent them from reaching the embassy.
“Jordan is for the free, not for traitors,” they chanted, with some demonstrators waving Jordanian and Palestinian flags.
“We are here to express solidarity with our brothers in Jerusalem,” one protester told dpa.
In 1994, Jordan became the second Arab country after Egypt to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
Anti-Israel sentiment still runs high among the Jordanians, many of whom are originally Palestinians. (dpa/NAN)
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Edited by Celine-Damilola Oyewole/Ismail Abdulaziz