Monday September 18 6:15 AM ET

Jordan Court Sentences Six Bin Laden Men to Death

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AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan's State Security Court on Monday sentenced to death six Muslim militants linked to Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden for planning attacks against Israeli and U.S. targets in the kingdom.

The six, four of whom are at large, are among 28 militants standing trial on charges that include possessing weapons and explosives, membership of bin Laden's group and plotting bombings during millennium celebrations last December.

The court also sentenced two other militants to death but commuted their sentences to life imprisonment.

It found six defendants innocent and handed down 15 years jail sentences to the rest. Some of these sentences were commuted to between seven-and-a-half years and 10 years.

Twelve of the 28 suspects were tried in absentia. The verdicts and sentences, the climax of a five-month trial, were read during a court session attended by reporters.

The verdicts are subject to appeal to the Court of Cassation.

The suspects in court denied links to bin Laden and charges that they planned strikes at tourist sites frequented by Israeli and U.S. tourists.

Bin Laden, who is based in Afghanistan, is wanted by the United States on suspicion of masterminding explosions at two U.S. embassies in East Africa in 1998 that killed more than 200 people.

USA Today newspaper said on Monday that Jordanian intelligence officials recently gave U.S. intelligence agencies computer-disk copies of a six-volume manual was used by bin Laden to train recruits at his camps in Afghanistan.

The manual also instructs recruits on how to assemble bombs similar to those that destroyed the U.S. embassies, the newspaper said.

USA Today reported, quoting senior U.S. intelligence officials, that the manual was seized from one of the 16 men on trial in Amman.

-- (hmm@hmm.hmm), September 18, 2000