Jordan’s king calls for Amman embassy shooter to face trial

Jordanian mourners attend a funeral of Bashar Hamarneh, a doctor who was in the residential quarter of the Israeli embassy at the time of an attack on the weekend, during his funeral in Madaba on July 27, 2017 after he died of his injuries. (AFP / Khalil Mazraawi)

AMMAN: Jordan’s King Abdallah has called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to put on trial an embassy security guard who shot dead two Jordanians.
He said the way the incident was handled would affect ties between the two countries.
In a statement, the Jordanian king said Netanyahu’s behavior toward the security guard, whom he embraced in a hero’s welcome on his return to Israel under diplomatic immunity, was “provocative on all fronts and enrages us, destabilizes security and fuels extremism.”
“We demand that the Israeli prime minister abides by his commitment and takes all measures to ensure the trial of the killer and not to handle this like a political show to achieve personal political gains,” he said.
In an incident testing already tense relations between the two neighbors, the guard shot dead a Jordanian teenager at Israel’s embassy in Amman on Sunday while a second Jordanian — the landlord of the house in the compound where the security guard lived — was also shot dead.
Jordanian police said on Monday that the security guard had fired on the teenager after the young man, who worked for a furniture firm and was delivering an order, got into a brawl and attacked him.
But they rejected Israel’s account that he had used a screwdriver to stab the guard in what Israeli officials described as a “terrorist attack.”
Jordan had wanted to question the guard, but Israel said he had diplomatic immunity and repatriated him.
King Abdallah vowed that the state would “do everything within its means” to get justice for the two slain Jordanians.
Jordan is one of two Arab states with which Israel has peace treaties. In what was a rare outburst against Israel, Abdullah also cited a previous incident in which a Jordanian judge was shot in March 2014 by an Israeli soldier while crossing a border crossing that outraged Jordanians.
No investigation was ever conducted.
“The way Israel handles the embassy case and the judges killing and other cases will have a direct impact on the nature of our relationship,” King Abdallah said.
Many Jordanians have criticized the authorities for handing over the security guard in what they said was an affront to national sovereignty. Lawmakers walked out of Parliament in protest at what they saw as inadequate response by the government.