Man jailed for promoting Daesh ideology

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a June State Security Court (SSC) ruling sentencing a man to two years in prison for spreading terrorist ideology through social media in Jordan in mid-2017.

The defendant was convicted of promoting Daesh ideology to gain more sympathisers through social media and was handed a three-year prison term.

However, the court decided to reduce the sentence to two years in prison “because the defendant was young and deserves a second chance in life”.

Court documents said the defendant adopted takfiri ideology in 2021 after monitoring the Daesh group’s activities on social media.

 “The defendant was convinced that Daesh applied the proper Sharia and he decided to spread its ideology using social media until his arrest in August 2021,” the court papers said.

The defendant also “pledged allegiance to the leaders of the terror group via social media and surfed their social media pages to learn how to manufacture explosives,” according to the court papers.

The SSC general prosecutor asked the higher court to uphold the sentence, stating the SSC had followed the proper procedures when sentencing the defendant.

The lawyer charged that the SSC prosecutor “failed to present any solid evidence that would implicate his client with the charges”.

However, the higher court ruled that the SSC had followed the proper procedures and the defendant deserved the verdict he had received.

“It was clear that the defendant confessed willingly to his desire to be part of the terror group and the authorities’ investigation procedures were correct and within the law,” the Court of Cassation said.

The Court of Cassation judges were Mohammad Ibrahim, Nayef Samarat, Yassin Abdullat, Hammad Ghzawi and Qassem Dughmi.