Jordan jails three for Bush assassination plot

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan's state security court jailed three Islamists for 15 years on Wednesday for plotting to assassinate U.S. President George W. Bush during his visit to the kingdom in November 2006, judicial sources said.

They said the court, which commuted their sentence from death to 15 years because they were young, found them guilty of plotting to carry out terrorist attacks and of possessing automatic weapons and explosives. The sources said the three were in their 20s but did not give specific ages.

Security officials said the three were arrested two days before they planned to attack Bush.

The three, who prosecutors say do not belong to any known Islamist group, were also accused of planning unspecified attacks on the U.S. mission in Jordan and a brewery.

Earlier their lawyers said the three were tortured to confess and denied that their clients were involved.

Lawyers defending those charged with militancy since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq accuse military prosecutors of manufacturing charges to try to show Jordan's commitment to the United States and what it calls its war on terror.

Jordan has rounded up scores of men in recent years, many of whom were either detained or charged for plotting attacks on Westerners.

Security officials in Jordan, a U.S. ally, say the rise in militancy is tied to growing anti-U.S. sentiment after the invasion of Iraq.

(Reporting by Suleiman al-Khalidi; Editing by Elizabeth Piper)