Mohammed Abu Fares sentenced to two years in jail and fined $585 and Ali Abu Sukkar to 1 1/2 years and fined $284 for their "provocative" remarks about Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, leader of al-Qaida in Iraq who was killed by U.S. forces June 7. The court said their prison terms began with their arrest on June 12.

The court acquitted a third defendant, Jaafar al-Hourani, for lack of evidence.

The defendants provoked widespread domestic indignation when they paid their condolences at the family home of al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist who was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Iraq on June 7.

Abu Fares described al-Zarqawi as a "martyr," while Abu Sukkar lauded his "martyrdom" and rebuked the presence of the U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq.

The Japan Times Weekly: Aug. 12, 2006
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