A military court Wednesday condemned to death nine men, including al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, for plotting a chemical attack that would have killed thousands of people in Jordan's capital.

"Bin Laden's organization is rising and we will be back!" the defendants shouted after the sentencing, referring to the al-Qaida terror network led by Osama bin Laden.

The accused screamed that the judges were "tyrants," adding: "The Jews are your masters."

The three judges picked up their papers and walked out, leaving the defendants shouting.

Al-Zarqawi and three defendants received their death sentences in absentia. It was the third death penalty that Jordanian courts have handed down to al-Zarqawi, who runs the most notorious insurgent group in Iraq.

The plot's alleged mastermind, Azmi al-Jayousi, and four co-defendants were in the dock when the judge condemned them to death for the 2004 plot, which security officials foiled before it could be carried out.

The court sentenced two of the 13 defendants to prison terms of between one and three years, and acquitted another two defendants.

The convicted men, who had long beards in the style of observant Muslim men, turned on one of the acquitted, a Syrian, and accused him of being an informer. They threatened to kill him, but they did not attack him although he was with them in the dock.

The 13 men Jordanian, Syrian and Palestinians were charged with conspiring to attack various sites in Jordan by setting off a cloud of toxic chemicals that would have killed thousands of people, according to prosecution estimates.

The prosecution told the court that al-Zarqawi sent more than US$118,000 to buy two vehicles which the plotters were to use in the attack. Suicide bombers were to drive the vehicles, loaded with explosives and chemicals, into the grounds of the General Intelligence Department in Amman and detonate them.

The plot also planned to attack the US Embassy, the prime minister's office, and various intelligence and military court officials.

The indictment said that when investigators conducted an experiment with small amounts of the chemicals found with the defendants, they found it produced "a strong explosion and a poison cloud that spread over an area of 500 square meters."

From the geographical data that mastermind al-Jayousi, a Jordanian, had collected, it appeared he aimed to kill thousands of people in the chemical attack, the indictment said.

(China Daily February 16, 2006)