AMMAN, Jordan, Nov. 2 (UPI) -- A former Jordanian senior official was referred to the state security court for declaring that Jordanians of Palestinian origin were discriminated against.
Adnan Abu Audeh, a former political adviser to King Abdullah, was referred Thursday by the civilian court to the general prosecutor of the state security court for interrogation on charges of inciting strife, undermining national unity and slandering the monarch.
The accusations were made a week after Abu Audeh told the Qatari al-Jazeera television that Jordanians of Palestinian origin, who make up 60 percent of the desert kingdom's population, suffer from political discrimination.
Abu Audeh's statement sparked an uproar in Jordanian political circles, leading to accusations that he was lying "and stirring political sectarianism."
Abu Audeh is one of Jordan's most prominent politicians of Palestinian descent, and one who worked as a senior officer in Jordanian intelligence. He was also minister of information during a very sensitive phase of Jordan's modern history, notably when fighting broke out between the Jordanian army and Palestinian Liberation Organization guerrillas in September 1970. That period became to be known as "Black September."
Abu Audeh also assumed the post of head of the Royal Court for several years under Jordan's late King Hussein.
The last senior post held by Abu Audeh was political adviser to King Abdullah in 1999. The monarch dismissed him after he published a controversial book on Palestinians in Jordan.
The English-language book reviewed the so-called "discrimination" against Palestinians in Jordan.
