The drama in the palace in Jordan, unprecedented as it is, is now headed for the courts. A relative of King Abdullah II and a former chief of the royal court will this week be led to the defendants’ cage at the state security court to face charges of “sedition and incitement”.
Further afield, the crisis is bound to impact politics in the Middle East in the wider canvas, though Saudi Arabia has promptly denied that it has any role in the raging controversy in Amman.
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The accused have been charged with conspiring with a senior royal, notably Prince Hamzah, a half-brother of the King to stoke unrest against the monarch even while seeking foreign assistance.
The drama being enacted in the palace in Amman erupted into the open in early April when Hamzah was placed under house arrest. Over the past two months, it has sent jitters through foreign capitals with Western powers rallying behind Abdullah, rated as an indispensable ally in a chronically unstable region.
The bitter controversy has served to expose rivalries within Jordan’s traditionally discreet Hashemite dynasty, provoking unprecedented public criticism of the monarch. The defendants are the most senior establishment figures to appear in court, which generally appears to rein in drug offenders and suspected militants.
“As far as I know, there has not been a case this big in the history of Jordan,” is the perception of Ala Khasawneh, the defence lawyer.
The 41-year-old Hamzah is the central figure among the dramatis personnae, though he is not facing any charges. The narratives inherent in the controversy are somewhat contradictory. He has been portrayed as a champion of ordinary Jordanians suffering from economic mismanagement and corruption.
At another remove, he is considered as a disgruntled royal who never forgave King Abdullah for depriving him of the title of Crown Prince in 2004, in favour of the King’s eldest son.
The indictment, as revealed to the state-controlled media, is explicit on the allegation that Hamzah “was determined to achieve his personal ambition of becoming king”.
It turns out to be a conflict of personal interests, between the King of Jordan and the man who could not be king.
The indictment states that the prince and the defendants ~ Sharif Hassan bin Zaid, a royal, and Bassem Awadallah, a former royal adviser ~ had conspired to stoke unrest that has now convulsed the palace.
They had been monitored since mid-March amidst the general anger over “oxygen outage” at a hospital in the town of Salt.
No fewer than eight coronavirus patients had perished at that juncture. Hamzah met the bereaved families just after King Abdullah visited Salt. The indictment has alleged that the prince “took advantage” of the tragedy to advance a popular message. Jordan showcases a cocktail of royal ambition and deaths on account of Covid.
The plot thickens.
