Three men sentenced to death in Jordan over fatal church mass shooting

A Jordanian court has sentenced three men to death by hanging for carrying out a fatal mass shooting on a church last month.

The attack on 23 October killed nine people and injured 34 others who had been attending a Christian funeral at a Greek Orthodox church in Karak governorate.

Jordan's Armed Forces said in a statement on Sunday that the men had been convicted of committing "terrorist acts", as well as possessing weapons, "promoting the ideas of a terrorist organisation" and "conspiracy to commit terrorist acts".

The three men - two Jordanian brothers and their brother-in-law - fled the scene of the attack and were arrested three days later. They have not been publicly identified.

Karak is home to a sizeable Christian community in the Muslim-majority kingdom.

CCTV footage from the day of the attack showed three men holding guns approaching and firing on St George's church in the village of Hmoud.

A second video showed dead and wounded people lying on the ground amid chaotic scenes at the church.

It is still unclear why the attackers chose to target that specific church.

Shortly after the attack, Jordan's King Abdullah II wrote on X: "The terrorist attack against Karak will be met with the harshest retaliation.

"Those who delude themselves into thinking that they can divide Jordanians with their bullets have no chance in the face of our unity."

The three men fled the scene of the shooting and were later located inside an abandoned house in Karak governorate, south of the capital, Amman.

They refused to surrender and opened fire on security forces, who returned fire and wounded all three of them, the Public Security Directorate said at the time. No security personnel were hurt in the shootout.

King Abdullah praised security forces for chasing the suspects "to the very end".

The week after the Karak shooting, Jordan struck what its military said were "terrorist organisations" in Syria in retaliation to the church attack.

Syrian health officials told state media that five people, including women, children and an elderly man, were killed in the strike on a village in the southern Daraa province. Jordan said its fighter jets had killed and wounded "several terrorists" without giving further details.

Jordan said it had co-ordinated with the Syrian government, but Syria said it had not been notified in advance.

Executions in Jordan are carried out by hanging. The kingdom previously observed an unofficial ban on executions from 2006 to 2014, and another pause from 2017 until June this year.