JERUSALEM – Israel on Sunday transferred a Jordanian member of parliament to Amman’s authorities, weeks after arresting him for attempting to smuggle pistols, rifles and gold into the occupied West Bank, officials said.
Imad Adwan was detained at the Israel-administered Allenby (King Hussein) crossing between Jordan and the West Bank on April 22 with Israeli security forces finding 12 rifles and 194 pistols in his car, the Shin Bet internal security agency said.
The parliamentarian was not charged by Israel but was handed over to Jordanian authorities “for his continued investigation and legal proceedings,” the Shin Bet said in a statement.
Jordan’s official Petra news agency confirmed the transfer, saying Adwan will appear before prosecutors at the country’s State Security Court after “other defendants admitted to trading and smuggling weapons, gold and e-cigarettes in association” with him.
Ahmad Safadi, speaker of the Jordanian parliament’s lower house, told local media that after Adwan’s release by Israel, the legislature had voted to strip him of immunity from prosecution, following a court request.
Since February 2022, Adwan had used his diplomatic passport 12 times to smuggle various goods, including “birds, pigeons, electronic cigarettes and gold”, the Shin Bet statement said.
From the beginning of 2023, he began smuggling weapons across the border “out of greed, and received large sums of money”, the statement added.
Adwan, 35, is a member of the Jordanian parliament’s Palestine Committee.
Following his detention, Israeli authorities arrested several Palestinians from the West Bank and Jordanian forces also detained several individuals connected to the smuggling, the Shin Bet said.
Jordan in 1994 became the second Arab country to recognize and sign a peace treaty with neighboring Israel, after Egypt.