Amman, Jordan – A man once imprisoned with Iraq’s most feared terrorist leader said Sunday that Abu Musab al- Zarqawi was tortured regularly by Jordanian prison officials in the late 1990s and was held six months in solitary confinement.
Offering possible clues as to why the Jordanian-born al- Qaeda leader chose Amman for triple hotel bombings this month, former cellmate Yousef Rababaa said, “He hated the intelligence services intensely, and the authorities didn’t know how to deal with his new ideology.”
Al-Zarqawi, whose real name is Ahmed Fadheel Nazzal al- Khalayleh, has claimed responsibility for the Nov. 9 suicide attacks that killed 60 people, mostly Muslims.
Reacting with outrage to al-Zarqawi’s latest threat – to kill Jordan’s king – members of his family, including a brother and a cousin, disavowed him publicly Sunday.
Rababaa, who spent three years in jail with al-Zarqawi until both were freed under a royal amnesty in 1999, recalled his cellmate’s inflexible, radical Islamic ideology.
“He divided the world between Muslim and infidels,” Rababaa said, adding that al- Zarqawi was quiet and did not show a violent nature.
“I didn’t see that side of him, although he had very strong opinions. I am very surprised at where he is today,” said Rababaa, who suggested that maybe someone helps al-Zarqawi plan his terror operations.
“He had very little education, only medium intelligence. But he was very brave,” he said.
Jordanians, including some who had supported the insurgency against American “occupiers” in Iraq, turned fiercely against the 39-year-old terror leader after the Amman attacks.
Even al-Zarqawi’s tribe rejected him, announcing in a statement published in major newspapers Sunday that it would “sever links with him until doomsday.”
“A Jordanian doesn’t stab himself with his own spear,” the 57 family members wrote.
The statement was a blow to al-Zarqawi, who will no longer enjoy the protection of his tribe and whose family members may seek to kill him.
Al-Zarqawi, who took his name from the city of Zarqa, 17 miles northeast of Amman, often boasted of his family’s influence while he was jailed in Jordan, Rababaa said.
