NEW (BOGUS) ALLEGATIONS SURFACE ABOUT FOLEY

S E C R E T AMMAN 004115 SIPDIS NOFORN E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/20/2014 TAGS: ASEC PTER JO SUBJECT: NEW (BOGUS) ALLEGATIONS SURFACE ABOUT FOLEY ASSASSINATION REF: A. FBIS GMP20040505000090 ¶B. AMMAN 2645 ¶C. FBIS GMP20021029000070 ¶D. FBIS GMP20010812000027 Classified By: Ambassador Edward W. Gnehm for reasons 1.5 (b)(d) ¶1. (C) Jordanian security contacts have dismissed a renewed claim of responsibility for the October 2002 assassination of USAID official Lawrence Foley, and say they are confident that the right people have been convicted for the crime. The Islamic Action Front (IAF)-affiliated newspaper al-Sabil on May 4 reported it had received a communiqu in the name of "Shurafa al-Urdun" (the Nobles of Jordan),in addition to two bullet casings that the senders claimed matched the weapons that killed Foley and Yitzak Snir, an Israeli businessman who was gunned down in the same Amman neighborhood in August ¶2001. The communiqu claimed that this new "evidence" proved that the men convicted on April 6 by Jordan's state security court for Foley's assassination were in fact innocent of the crime. According to al-Sabil, Hussein Majali, the President of the Jordanian Bar Association who is the principal defense attorney for the Foley assassins, received a similar package in the mail (refs a and b). ¶2. (S/NF) The "Nobles of Jordan" issued claims immediately after the Foley and Snir shootings (refs c and d),but until now, security services cannot confirm the group's existence. Moreover, ORCA security contacts report that the bullet casings sent to the paper do not match the ballistics from the crime scene. They remain confident that they have accurately identified and built a solid case against the perpetrators in Foley's killing, and dismiss the communiqu as a feeble attempt by as yet unidentified individuals to exonerate the criminals responsible for the assassination. -------------- COMMENT -------------- ¶3. (C) It is possible that unknown supporters of the defendants (who still maintain their innocence) concocted this story in an effort to cast doubt on the April 6 verdicts in advance of the groups' upcoming appeal in the Court of Cassation. The "group" may have chosen to send the "evidence" to al-Sabil (the highest circulation weekly in Jordan) because as the publication of Jordan's leading opposition group, it was more likely than other pro-government newspapers to publish the story. No other Jordanian newspapers reported the story. Visit Embassy Amman's classified web site at http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman or access the site through the State Department's SIPRNET home page. GNEHM