Marking a visit from Jordan's king, the leader of Qatar...

Marking a visit from Jordan's king, the leader of Qatar pardoned a Jordanian journalist who had been convicted of spying and sentenced to death, according to the official Qatari official news agency.
Firas al-Majali, who worked as a reporter for state-owned Qatar Television was convicted and sentenced to death in October 2002 for spying and passing military and other information about Qatar to Jordan. An appeals court upheld the sentence.
The news agency said the emir, Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, issued the pardon on the occasion of King Abdullah II's visit and in an attempt to strengthen relations between the two nations.
Al-Majali's wife, Roula Abul-Rouss, said in a telephone interview from Jordan that "happiness overwhelmed Firas al-Majali's family today."
"At times, we were scared. But our faith in God was great, and it was a summer cloud that passed," Abul-Rouss told The Associated Press.
Qatari officials had alleged that al-Majali, 30, had sent information to Jordan on the status of US troops in Qatar as well as economic and social data. Cool relations between the two countries complicated al-Majalis' case.
In August 2002, Jordan recalled its ambassador to Qatar in a diplomatic row over a program Al-Jazeera television, based in Qatar, aired that the government found insulting to the royal family.
However, the ambassador, Omar Al-Amad, returned in November 2002, and the leaders of the two countries met in Paris in January 2003.
The emir's pardon ordered al-Majali's immediate release, the Qatari agency said.
Abul-Rouss said she had not yet spoken to her husband, but that Qatari officials had informed the family he was expected to arrive in Jordan later in the day.
"We are preparing for him a party of a lifetime," she said.