Mr. Salem Saad Salem bin Sweid and Mr. Yasser Fathi Ibrahim Freihat, sentenced to death by a Military Court in 2004 for the murder of a USAID official were executed on March 11, 2006; Mr. Adnan Ismail, convicted for killing his wife and child, was executed three days later.
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the Amman Center for Human Rights Studies (ACHRS) express their deep concern about those recent executions since Mr. Salem Saad Salem bin Sweid and Mr. Yasser Fathi Ibrahim Freihat had claimed that their confessions had been obtained under torture and neither the State Security Court nor the Court of Cassation took those allegations into account, in clear violation of international human rights law.
Indeed, under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, to which Jordan acceded in 1991, Article 12 obliges member States to conduct inquiries into any allegations of torture, and Article 15 requires them to make sure that « any statement which is established to have been made as a result of torture shall not be invoked as evidence in any proceeding ».
In addition, General Observation n° 13 on Article 14 of the ICCPR states that the law should provide that « evidence provided by means of such methods or any other form of compulsion is wholly unacceptable» (para 14). General Observation n° 20 relating to Article 7 of the ICCPR also provides that it is important that « the law must prohibit the use of admissibility in judicial proceedings of statements or confessions obtained through torture or other prohibited treatment» (para 12).
In addition, 18 persons have been condemned to death since the beginning of this year, which reflects a sharp increase in the number of death sentences passed in relation to the preceding year. Nine of them, including Al Qaida leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, were condemned last February in connection with a plot for a chemical attack that was reportedly planned to take place in Jordan in 2004 and that could have provoked the death of thousands of people. They were condemned by a military court and four of them were tried in abstentia. Nine others, including Mr. Mohammed Shalabi, chief of the « Abu Sayyaf Group » (a local militia), have been condemned on March 22 for « terrorist acts » that took place in 2002 in the city of Maan, and which caused the death of six people during an unrest in the city. Four of them were tried in abstentia.
These alarming figures are cause of great concern. FIDH strongly encourages the abolition of death penalty worldwide in all circumstances, as it is an inhuman treatment, denying the universally recognized right to life, in addition to having been proved useless as a deterrent.
FIDH and ACHRS also express their deepest concern over the claims of incommunicado detentions and the complete reliance on « confessions » obtained under torture, even for crimes that may result in the imposition of the death sentence. These claims are not investigated by independent bodies, in spite of the repeated allegations by victims and witnesses, and of the numerous evidences collected by human rights organizations.
FIDH and ACHRS call upon the Jordanian authorities to adopt a moratorium on death sentences as a first step towards abolition. This would put an end to an inhuman punishment, and it would make Jordan « the first country in the Middle East without capital punishment », as His Excellency the King Abdallah II bin al-Hussain already expressed the wish in 2004.
Moreover, FIDH and ACHRS call upon the authorities to enforce domestic legislation as well as international standards on the right to a fair trial and the absolute prohibition of inhuman treatments. An independent investigation into all allegations of torture on detainees should be ensured, and the perpetrators should be brought to justice.