Wednesday, the State Security Court sentenced Awni Mutee to temporary imprisonment for 20 years and two years in prison, with fees.

This came during a session held by the court earlier Wednesday to announce the verdict in the 'tobacco case,' in which 29 defendants and companies were tried, including two people who passed away - Youssef Antoun and Jasser Al-Naber.

Additionally, the defendants Salameh Al Alamat and Atef Hussein received the same conviction as Awni Mutee.

The State Security Court sentenced the defendants Yousef Awni, Mohammad Al Alamat, Raed Hamdan, Ismail Salman, Motasem Ramadan Mesbah, Saifaldeen Abu Roqaa, Yazeed Asad Yousef, Mahmoud Mohammad Hammad, Mohammad Ateyeh and Mohammad Saleh Mohammad to three years and a half in prison with temporary labor and fees.

Additionally, during the session, the court fined a number of the defendants with JD 179 million.

Earlier Wednesday, the court also acquitted Awni Mutee of money laundering and bribery felonies for not having enough evidence against him.

The court convicted Mutee of the charge of customs evasion and sentenced him to a fine of JD 10,000.

Additionally, he was convicted with other felonies related to counterfeit goods and was sentenced to one year imprisonment as well as paying fees for each incident.

Mutee was also convicted of sales tax evasion and a fine of JD 1,000.

During the session, the court convicted Awni Mutee’s brother, with the felony of carrying out acts that endanger society, its security and economic resources, and customs smuggling, and fined him with JD 10,000 for each smuggling incident.

The session was chaired by Judge Nasser Al-Salamat, the Civil judge Afif Al-Khawaldeh, Major Safwan Al-Zoubi and in the presence of the State Security Prosecutor.
During the session, the SSC said the defendants carried out an organized ‘criminal act.’

The court added that the defendants in the tobacco case took advantage of investment incentives to harm the national economy.

The State Security Court also decided to charge one of the defendants in the tobacco case with JD 16,566,733.

In March 2019, the SSC began trying the accused and the companies involved in the largest corruption case in the Kingdom- known in the media as the "Awni Mutee" case- involving a fake tobacco factory.

The Turkish authorities extradited the main defendant in the case, Awni Mutee, to Jordan in December 2018.

Those involved were charged with jointly carrying out acts that endanger the safety and security of society and economic resources; carrying out acts that would change the economic entity of the country or endangering the basic conditions of society; joint customs evasion as described as an economic crime; fraud jointly in the quality of goods; tax evasion, and laundering money.

During the court’s sessions, it heard 141 witnesses in the case, in addition to a number of pieces of evidence from the prosecution and testimonies of defense witnesses and companies involved in the case.

The case file included 135 documents ranging from investigation records, customs statements, "inspection seizures", inventory committee reports, and other documents related to the case, in addition to the entire case file.

The value of damages caused by the case of Awni Mutee and his partners on the Jordanian economy amounted to about JD 539 million, according to the indictment published by the Public Prosecution Department earlier.