Jordan releases extremist cleric

WASHINGTON, March 18 (UPI) -- Jordanian authorities have quietly released one of the ideological leaders of global terrorism, the alleged spiritual mentor of al-Qaida in Iraq's founder.

Isam Mohammed Taher al-Barqawi, better known as Sheik Abu Mohammed al-Maqdisi, was released last week, a Jordanian official confirmed to United Press International.

He had been held in solitary confinement without charge or trial since July 2005, according to human-rights groups, and had recently been on hunger strike.

Officials in Amman told reporters last week that his release was on "humanitarian grounds" owing to declining health. Al-Hayat newspaper reported that he had agreed to remain publicly silent in exchange for his release.

The official who spoke to UPI had no direct knowledge of any deal but said, "We would not have released him if we believed he was going to go back to inciting" would-be extremists.

"If he goes back at it, I'm pretty sure he would be arrested again," the official said.

Al-Maqdisi spent four years, 1995-99, jailed with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian who later went on to pledge fealty to Osama bin Laden and founded al-Qaida in Iraq before being killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2006.

Al-Maqdisi's arrest in 2005 followed just weeks after his acquittal by a state security court on charges of conspiring to attack air bases in Jordan and seems to have been prompted by an interview he gave to al-Jazeera TV.