Security members stand guard outside the State Security Court in Amman, Jordan, July 12, 2021.
(Amman) – Jordanian authorities executed six men by hanging on June 21, 2026, its first mass execution since 2017, Human Rights Watch said today. All six cases, two involving terrorism-related charges and three involving drug trafficking, included acts of violence in which members of the police or security forces were killed.
All six men were convicted following trials in Jordan’s State Security Court, a military institution that includes military and civilian judges. Mohammad al-Momani, Jordan’s communications minister, said the executions were carried out after the sentences received final judicial confirmation through the Court of Cassation, Cabinet endorsement, and royal decree.
“Carrying out six executions in a single morning marks a sharp return to a practice Jordan has used only sporadically since reinstating capital punishment 12 years ago,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Jordan should lead the region by example on rights and protection and renew its moratorium on the death penalty.”
Two of those executed, identified by authorities as Mahmoud Nayef Musa and Anwar Adel Saleh, were convicted in connection with the so-called “Salt Cell” case. The government said that they were members of a cell that detonated a bomb near a joint security patrol close to an annual festival in the town of Fuheis, west of Amman, on August 10, 2018, killing two members of the gendarmerie forces and wounding six others. The next day, during follow-up operations to detain the bombing suspects in the nearby town of al-Salt, four additional security personnel were killed.
A third man, Ibrahim Mansour, was executed for his role in a December 2022 ambush on a police patrol in the southern town of Maan that killed Colonel Abdulrazzaq al-Dalabeeh
