Amman, September 27: The Jordanian government on Saturday announced that it was asking the US authorities for information about a Jordanian teenager, Hosam Smadi, who was charged on Friday with attempt to blow up a 60-storey tower in Dallas, Texas.
“The government has started contacts, through its embassy in Washington, with the US departments of foreign affairs and justice in a follow-up of the Jordanian citizen’s case,” Minister of State for Information Affairs and Communication Nabil Sharif was quoted as saying by the official Petra news agency.
“We have asked the US authorities for full information about the case and the charges directed against Smadi with a view to ensure that he is accorded a fair trial in compliance with the international agreements, particularly the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations,” he said.
Smadi, 19, was charged on Friday by the US Attorney James T. Jacks in Dallas with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction to blow up a 60-storey office tower in downtown Dallas.
The Jordanian citizen, who was not associated with another terrorist group, had been under surveillance and did not know that the purported car bomb supplied by an undercover FBI agent did not contain explosives, Jacks said in a statement.
“The identification and apprehension of this defendant, who was acting alone, is a sobering reminder that there are people among us who want to do us grave harm,” he added.
Sharif said that, according to the Jordanian official records, Smadi left Jordan for “unknown reasons” in March 2007. “He was referred to court in 2004 on theft charges,” he added.
The Jordanian minister said that the Jordanian authorities “will cooperate fully with the concerned American authorities in this case”.
“Jordan has always stood firmly against terrorism and, in principle, it condemns all forms of terrorism,” he added.
—–Agencies