JORDAN. MILITARY COURT RETRIES CONVICTED MILITANT

Jordan's state security court opened the retrial of Muammar Ahmed Yousef al-Jaghbeer, an al-Qaida-linked militant who has already been convicted and sentenced to death in absentia. 
Al-Jaghbeer, a Jordanian of Palestinian origin, was in Jordanian custody after being captured in Iraq and extradited. He had been sentenced to death in connection with a plot that led to the killing of a US diplomat. Under Jordanian law, people convicted in absentia have the right for retrial once captured.
Al-Jaghbeer did not enter a plea to the charges, and presiding judge Col. Fawaz Buqour adjourned the hearing until a lawyer could be assigned to the suspect.
Al-Jaghbeer was one of six fugitives, including Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, convicted of Laurence Foley's assassination and sentenced to death in April 2004.
The military court at the time said the fugitives and four others in police custody - including two who were also sentenced to death - had formed a cell that allegedly planned Foley's slaying as part of a plot that envisaged several attacks against Americans and Israelis in the kingdom.
Foley, a 60-year-old Amman-based administrator for the US Agency for International Development, was gunned down outside his Amman home on Oct. 28, 2002. The indictment had accused al-Jaghbeer of facilitating contacts between the alleged cell mastermind, Libyan Salem bin Suweid, and al-Zarqawi, also known as Ahmed al-Khalayleh. Bin Suweid, who was present in court, was sentenced to death for firing the gun that killed Foley.