AMMAN (Sputnik) – Phone intercepts suggest that aides to the embattled former Jordanian heir Prince Hamzah had sought pledges of allegiance on his behalf from tribal leaders and ex-military officers weeks before he was detained and placed in house arrest amid accusations he had engaged in a plot to destabilize the kingdom.
“Our guy has made a decision to move, do you pledge allegiance?” a voice in one of the supposedly tapped calls was quoted as saying by The Guardian.
The alleged exchanges took place over three weeks in March, when Jordanian officials claim Hamzah, first in line to the throne until King Abdullah II, his half-brother, removed his title as crown prince in 2004, attempted to rally support for a subversive plot to challenge the monarch’s reign.
A meeting of tribal figures in northern Jordan, tapped by intelligence officials, is said to reveal the men discussing how to galvanize support for 41-year old Hamzah. According to the cited audios, meetings of civilians were to be limited to 15 people, while gatherings of retired military leaders were restricted to seven.
The Arabic term mubayaa, which implies swearing an oath to a monarch, was reportedly heard in the intercepted recordings, claims the outlet, triggering concerns of intelligence officials who had been surveiling Hamzah and his aides.
The cited recordings have become crucial evidence in the case the Jordanian government has built against two men - Bassem Awadallah, a former envoy to Saudi Arabia, and Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a cousin of the king – who are scheduled to stand trial in Amman in the near future.
The two men are accused of acting as proxies for Hamzah in a failed attempt to undermine his half-brother, King Abdullah, as monarch.
On Wednesday The Guardian reported of U.S. officials having warned the General Intelligence Directorate (GID) in Amman of the alleged seditious conspiracy in a call made in March.