Seven Brotherhood convictions are reported in Jordan, with no court statement to confirm them
A Washington think tank says a Jordanian court jailed seven Brotherhood figures on 25 October. No wire, no Petra report and no named court has carried it — which is itself worth reading.
The claim appears in a policy brief dated 27 October by Ahmad Sharawi, Senior Research Analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies: that on 25 October a Jordanian court sentenced seven Brotherhood leaders and members to terms of six months to three years in a case involving illegal fundraising and money laundering, with five receiving three years, among them Aref Hamdan, reportedly elected to the Shura Council of the rebranded party. The same brief reports that former Brotherhood Shura chairman Hamza Mansour, former deputy leader Jamil Abu Baker and executive council member Mustafa Saqer were also elected to that body. The Files has found no judicial statement or agency match. The court is not named, nor the statute, nor six of the seven defendants, nor whether the sentences are first-instance and appealable. FDD argues for designation; Sharawi’s brief recommends that “Washington should continue investigating the relationships between the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliated organizations to determine whether operational or financial ties persist.”
The confirmed event of the week was an attack on a church at Hamoud on Friday 23 October, which Jordanian authorities called terrorist and whose death toll they raised to nine, The National reported on 24 October. The Royal Palace said security officials briefed King Abdullah II on the investigation without giving details. No attribution to the Brotherhood or to the Umma Party has been established. The Umma Party — the rebranded Islamic Action Front — called the attack “a dangerous crime and a terrorist action that targets our nation and its cohesion.” The National also records that Step News Agency, which it describes as an anti-Brotherhood YouTube channel, recirculated an old clip of Hamza Mansour declining to condemn ISIS outright: a reputational campaign running alongside the courts, not evidence about the attack.
Assessment: Jordan banned the Brotherhood in April 2025 over accusations of complicity in a weapons-manufacturing scheme and then left the Islamic Action Front, the largest bloc in parliament, untouched while it rebranded. That gap is the story, and a convicted Shura Council member would be the lever for closing it. Two readings of the silence are available: Amman prosecuting without publicity to avoid making martyrs before any move on the party, or a claim thinner than its framing. Neither is established, and an advocacy institution being the sole record of a court action is a fact about the record, not about the court. Watch Petra, and watch whether the convictions are first-instance.