Jordan's state security court on Sunday sentenced to death a drug dealer convicted of killing three security personnel when they arrived to arrest him in the east of Amman.
Security is tight in Jordan and deadly violence is relatively low. However, the killings in March shook the tribal society in the area and highlighted the issue of drugs in Jordan.
State television reported that the suspect, who was not identified, was convicted of “bodily assault on those charged with applying the drug law, which resulted in the death of three personnel of the narcotics directorate”.
“The court decided to sentence the accused with the toughest punishment, which is execution,” it reported. Jordan last carried out an execution in 2014 and there has in effect been a moratorium on the death penalty since then.
According to the official account, the three personnel were members of a drugs squad on a “tactical operation” in east Amman to apprehend the “dangerous narcotics suspect”, who “immediately initiated direct gunfire towards the officers”. The raid team seized the man “after returning fire”.
The three slain personnel were First Lt Murad Al Mawajdeh, Sgt Khaldon Al Raqab and Cpl Sobhi Mohammed Dweikat. A non-commissioned officer was wounded in the melee.
East Amman, the least affluent part of the capital, has been the scene of increasing anti-drugs raids in the past several years. Since 2018, Jordan has been a main conduit for drugs manufactured in Lebanon and Syria and heading for Saudi Arabia, which is also a consuming market.
Amphetamine pills known as Captagon are particularly common. Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Israel are also sources of drugs for the kingdom.
Jordanian officials say the flows have fallen since the overthrow of former Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad in December 2024. However, a new breed of drug smuggler emerged after the fall of the former regime, reactivating the cross-border trade of Captagon using advanced balloon technology.
A military judge presides over the state security court, which the authorities set up during martial law from 1967 to 1991. The court deals with terrorism and other cases deemed as a threat to the state, as well as major drug incidents.
A lawyer said that the sentence could still be appealed to the highest appeals court. However, the sentence “is not unusual, considering the severity of the crime”.
Last month, Jordan's air force raided factories, workshops and warehouses from which drugs were being sent into Jordan, the kingdom's military said. Compared to previous Jordanian raids, the targets were deeper inside Syria. Jordan has largely refrained from attacking areas near the border inhabited by Bedouin tribes with relatives in the kingdom.
During the last six years of the Assad regime, Jordan's border became the main conduit for smuggling Captagon from Syria. The substance has one of the highest profit margins of any illegal drug. The flow of Captagon is a regional security issue because its main destination is Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries.
The downfall of the Assad family regime resulted in a sharp drop in the drug flow, Jordanian officials say, largely because regime forces and pro-Iranian militias involved in the trade disappeared from the scene.
