Former Jordanian Prime Minister Marouf Al-Bakhit has passed away after a long battle with illness. Al-Bakhit died on Saturday and was buried in his hometown Mahis. Born in 1945, he originates from the Abbad Jordanian tribe. Bakhit enrolled in the Jordanian Armed Forces-Arab Army in 1964 and retired in 1999 as a Major General. He also served as Jordan's ambassador to Türkiye in 2000-2004 and then to Israel. At the beginning of 2005, Jordan's King Abdullah II summoned him to be the Director of His Office and Director of the Higher National Security Council.
Jordan rejected a U.S. request to release a former top Jordanian official imprisoned in an alleged plot against the Western-allied monarchy in September, the official's lawyer and family say. In March, the U.S. asked Jordan to release Bassem Awadallah, who is a dual Jordanian-American citizen, on humanitarian grounds. Awadallah has spent over two years in Jordanian prison on charges that he plotted against King Abdullah II of Jordan with the king’s own half-brother. Jordan's rejection of the request was sharply criticized by Awadallah's lawyer, John Ashcroft, who is also a former U.S. attorney general.