Nearly 20 people were detained after allegedly plotting against King Abdullah II, The Washington Post reported Saturday. Jordanian officials denied that former Crown Prince Hamzah bin Hussein was arrested after reports claimed he was detained in his Amman palace. Officials called the actions of those arrested a “threat to the country’s stability, according to the Post. The WashingtonPost reported that the plot involved at least one other royal and tribal leaders and was “complex and far-reaching,” according to officials.US-educated Bassem Awadallah, a long-time confidant of the king who later became minister of finance, and Sharif Hassan Ben Zaid, a member of the royal family were detained along with other unnamed figures, Petra said. It gave no details.Arrests of top officials and royal family members are rare in Jordan.Awadallah, who was a driving force behind economic reforms before he resigned as chief of the royal court in 2008, has long faced stiff resistance from an old guard and an entrenched bureaucracy that flourished for years on government perks.Jordan’s powerful intelligence agency, with a pervasive influence in public life, has played a bigger public role since the introduction of emergency laws at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic last year, which civic groups say violate civil and political rights.
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