Jordanian authorities expel Saudi Sheikh Salman al-Odeh
Jordan, Politics, 8/13/2002

A Jordanian official stressed on Monday that the Jordanian authorities expelled the Saudi Sheikh Salman al-Odeh by the end of last week just one hour before a lecture he was due to deliver at the vocational trade union complex in Amman under the title "the Islam of Jihad or terrorism?"

In a statement, the Jordanian vocational trade union of the leftist and Islamic majority and the organization of "Mou'ta" festival for arts and the culture said in a statement that the Jordanian government took a series of "security measures" embodied in preventing one of the key Islamists opposition member in Tunisia Sheikh Rashid al-Ghanoushe from entering the country in order to take part in Mou'ta festival in addition to arresting Sheikh al-Odeh in the hotel he stayed in upon his arrival in Amman.

However, an official source in Amman denied the Saudi Sheikh to have been arrested. The source said it was only "asking him to leave Jordan." The same source said that the Saudi clergy returned back home after he war interrogated.

Al-Odeh said he was "humiliated" by the Jordanian security men who took him from the hotel to the airport to deport him. Al-Odeh added that one of the Jordanian intelligence men, who broke into his room in the hotel, spoke in foul language when the security person was questioned by Al-Odeh's secretary and escort about what sort of accusations are addressed to him.

Al-Odeh continued that 12 men of the Jordanian intelligence broke into his room in the hotel inspected it and confiscated the papers of his lecture and his "mobile card number" and that of his escort Khaled al-Qaffari, and they were taken to the airport where "we were held for four hours before we were deported on a Jordanian plane to Jeddah (Saudi Arabia)." Al-Odeh expressed his regret over the behavior of the Jordanian authorities saying this happened "though the Jordanian trade unions got the consent of the prime minister (Ali Abul Ragheb) and the minister of the Interior (Qaftan al-Majali) to deliver the speech."

The chairman of the Jordanian vocational trade union Hashem Ghareybah said that the "governor of Amman informed us that Sheikh al-Odeh is persona non grata because he is an extremist and an opposition member." Al-Ghareybah said that the decision taken by the Jordanian authorities to prevent al-Odeh from delivering his lecture was instructed by "foreign forces." Al-Ghareybah continued that the Jordanian authorities also prevented the Yemeni Sheikh Ahmad al-Asbahi from delivering his speech in the same festival.

To this effect the vocational trade unions canceled other remaining activities in the Mou'ta festival which was due to continue until the end of this week in protest of the Jordanian government's measures.

Worthy mentioning that al-Odeh was jailed for five years 1994- 1995 in Saudi Arabia because of his ideas and books.

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