Jordanian soldier faces charges in attack
The government of Jordan has charged one of its soldiers with murder in an attack that killed three members of a U.S. Army team, family members of the victims are told.
Jordan’s government has formally charged one of its soldiers with murder in the Nov. 4, attack on a military convoy that killed three members of a U.S. Army Special Forces team, including one who grew up in Houston.
Family members of Staff Sgt. James F. Moriarty, 27, and Staff Sgt. Matthew C. Lewellen, 27, of Kirksville, Mo. — two of the Green Berets who were killed in the daylight attack outside King Faisal Air Base in Jordan — said FBI officials on Thursday briefed them about the charges against the Jordanian soldier, identified as M’aarek Abu Tayeh.
An assistant to a U.S. government official close to the investigation also confirmed Jordan issued a murder charge against Abu Tayeh, who has been accused of opening fire on the American troops when they returned to the base after training Syrian rebels at a nearby weapons range.
“It’s a step in the right direction. It’s a 180-degree switch,” said James Moriarty, a Houston lawyer who has been openly critical of Jordan’s response to the shooting.
The grieving Moriarty said the official charge is murder with intent to kill more than one person.
Abu Tayeh also is charged with “insulting the dignity and reputation of the military” and “violating orders and instructions of the military,” said Moriarty.
His son and namesake was a
graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.
The trial of Abu Tayeh will be conducted by a Jordanian military court.No date has been given.
“If it’s open to the public, I’m going to be there,” Moriarty said Thursday night. “I want to see the son-of-abitch convicted of murdering my boy.”
Family members were told on a conference call that Abu Tayeh could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted by the military court. The third soldier killed, Staff Sgt. Kevin McEnroe, was from Tuscon.
“I would prefer the U.S. had an extradition in place, but that’s not the case,” said Chuck Lewellen, whose son was in the first vehicle allegedly attacked by Abu Tayeh.
Staff Sgt. Lewellen was mortally wounded and died while en route to a hospital in Amman, Jordan’s capital.
Lewellen, who lives in Kirksville, Mo., about 200 miles northwest of St. Louis, said the killings of the American troops amounted to a capital crime and warrant a punishment more severe than life at hard labor.
“But even if he’s convicted, do we have faith in Jordan that he’s going to be in prison for life or is it just a sham?” he said. “Are they going through the motions just to get us off their back?”
On Thursday, a spokeswoman at Jordan’s embassy in Washington could not confirm whether Abu Tayeh had been charged with murder.
Almost from the beginning, family members of the slain Green Berets said Jordan, although a critical ally in the U.S. war against terroris groups like the Islamic State, has not been forthcoming about the shooting.
They said their sons have been accused of rushing the gate and accidently discharging a firearm, causing Abu Tayeh to believe the base was under attack.
“The fact that they did not clear the air until after six months of this is just disappointing,” Lewellen said. “They should let the world know that these guys did absolutely nothing wrong.”
Moriarty and Lewellen both believe their sons were killed as part of a planned attack by Abu Tayeh.
“He set out to kill these Americans,” Moriarty said. “Why he did that, nobody knows. But I’m not buying that he just ‘lost it.’ ”
He said Jordan should also charge at least 11 of its soldiers who were at the scene but failed to intervene.
“They just sat on their hands while my son was murdered,” Moriarty said.