The Court of Cassation on Thursday ruled to dismiss an appeal filed by the lawyers of Bassem Awadallah and Sharif Hassan Bin Zeid, and uphold a 15-year prison term the State Security Court (SSC) had handed down against the two after convicting them in the high-profile sedition case.
In July, the SSC found both men guilty of jointly inciting against the political regime in the Kingdom, carrying out acts that endanger the safety and security of the society, and fomenting sedition. Moreover, Sharif Hassan Bin Zeid had been also convicted of possessing a narcotic substance with intent to use, and the misdemeanor of drug use.
The Court of Cassation said it had established that the acts committed by the two convicts were material and tangible in ways and means intended to encourage and incite against the political system in Jordan.
They also involved actions that would endanger the safety and security of the society, inflame societal strife, undermine societal peace, and terrorize citizens by fomenting a state of chaos and division, and harming the cohesion and unity of the Jordanian family in its various components, the court added.
The Court of Cassation said that it had concluded that the ruling issued by the SSC had been based on established facts and extracted from legal evidence presented by the Public Prosecution, explaining that the acts committed by the two included all the elements of the crimes that they had been tried for and that the decision to incriminate them was in accordance with the provisions of the law.
Source: Jordan News Ageny