AMMAN (Dispatches) – Zionist regime authorities released a Jordanian lawmaker to his home country on Sunday, the occupying regime’s domestic spy agency said, after he allegedly tried smuggling dozens of rifles and handguns through a crossing.
Legislator Imad al-Adwan’s arrest threatened to further strain ties between the occupying regime and neighboring Jordan, which have had tense relations recently despite a nearly three-decade-old treaty. The occupying regime viewed the incident as serious, but al-Adwan’s release signaled it was hoping to put the potentially combustible affair behind it.
Al-Adwan was arrested on Apr. 22 allegedly with bags full of more than 200 guns, the Shin Bet agency said in a statement. It claimed al-Adwan carried out 12 separate smuggling attempts since early 2022, using his diplomatic passport to bring in anything from electronic cigarettes to gold to birds.
The Jordanian speaker of parliament said al-Adwan’s parliamentary immunity had been revoked, meaning he could face prosecution. A Jordanian security source told Reuters news agency the case will be brought to trial.
Relations between the Zionist regime and Jordan have soured in recent years over the occupying regime’s construction of illegal settlements in occupied land, its violent raids on Palestinians in the West Bank and its discriminatory policies in holy sites in Al-Quds’ Old City.
Jordan controlled the West Bank and East Al-Quds before the occupying regime captured the areas in the 1967 war, but the kingdom retains custodianship of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and other Muslim holy sites in the Old City.
Since the occupying regime’s hardline cabinet took office late last year, relations with Jordan have further deteriorated.