Jordan backs U.S. on war crimes court

Jordan backs U.S. on war crimes court
Americans get immunity, Jordan keeps financial aid

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- Jordan on Sunday approved an agreement that gives American citizens in Jordan immunity against prosecution for war crimes by the International Criminal Court.

The lower house of parliament approved the agreement, which had already been passed by the upper house last year.

Approval by both houses ratifies the agreement. King Abdullah II, who has already approved the measure, is expected to issue a royal decree making it law.

The bilateral agreement says that any U.S. national -- or non-national working for the U.S. government -- accused by the court will be surrendered by Jordan to U.S. custody, rather than to the international court in The Hague, Netherlands.

Opponents of the agreement said it violated Jordan's 2002 signing of the Rome statute that helped bring the court into being.

The agreement's ratification ensures continued U.S. economic and military assistance, which amounted to $250 million (euro207 million) last year.

"Jordan has been a leading country in the ICC, the only Arab country to sign up, and today it has stepped down from its pedestal under U.S. economic pressure," said Christoph Wilcke of the advocacy group Human Rights Watch, which has actively campaigned for Jordan's parliament to reject the agreement.

"We are very disappointed that the lower house has reversed its previous courageous decision," Wilcke told The Associated Press in a telephone interview in Amman.

Parliament's lower house initially voted down the agreement by an overwhelming majority last summer.

Jordanian lawmaker Ali Abu-Sukar told the AP that "the agreement contradicts the Rome accord ... and in our days the Americans are the people who now commit war crimes."

Abu-Sukar is a member of Jordan's largest opposition group, the Islamic Action Front, which is the political arm of the Muslim Brotherhood Movement.

"It is humiliating and will twist arms because the United States had threatened to cut economic aid to countries which reject this agreement," he said.

But the majority of Jordanian lawmakers who passed the agreement said it was in the country's political and economic interest, according to the official Petra news agency.

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