Jordan Executes Two for Slaying of Envoy

The Associated Press

AMMAN, Jordan - Two militants were executed by hanging Saturday for the killing in Amman of a U.S. diplomat, police said.

Laurence Foley, a 60-year-old administrator of U.S. aid programs in Jordan, was gunned down outside his Amman home on Oct. 28, 2002.

Jordanian authorities have blamed al-Qaida in Iraq's top operative, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for Foley's death.

The two executed militants are Salem bin Suweid, a Libyan, and Yasser Freihat, a Jordanian. They were convicted of belonging to a cell headed by the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi. The two appealed their convictions, but the appeals court upheld their death sentences in November.

A police statement said bin Suweid and Freihat were executed before dawn at Swaqa Jail, 60 miles south of the Jordanian capital.

In July 2004, a Jordanian military court found 10 people, including al-Zarqawi, guilty of a terror conspiracy that led to the killing of Foley. Six were sentenced to death, including al-Zarqawi and four other Jordanians believed to be in Iraq.

One of the 10, Moamar Ahmad al-Jaghbeer, was later captured by U.S. forces in Iraq and extradited to Jordan, where he is being retried for Foley's murder and another terror case.

An 11th man was acquitted for lack of evidence.

Bin Suweid was convicted of firing the gun that killed Foley. Freihat was convicted of driving the getaway car.

Foley's killing stunned Jordan, a U.S. ally in the fight against terror and a peace partner with Israel.

Jordan has sentenced scores of militants to death in recent years. Saturday's executions were the first to involve militants believed linked to al-Qaida.