Abdullah I of Jordan - Assassination

Assassination

On 20 July 1951, Abdullah, while visiting Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, was shot dead by "a Palestinian from the Husseini clan." On 16 July, Riad Bey al-Solh, a former Prime Minister of Lebanon, had been assassinated in Amman, where rumors were circulating that Lebanon and Jordan were discussing a joint separate peace with Israel. The assassin passed through apparently heavy security. Abdullah was in Jerusalem to give a eulogy at the funeral and for a prearranged meeting with Reuven Shiloah and Moshe Sasson. Abdullah was shot while attending Friday prayers at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the company of his grandson, Prince Hussein. The Palestinian gunman, motivated by fears that the old king would make a separate peace with Israel, fired three fatal bullets into the King's head and chest. Abdullah's grandson, Prince Hussein, was at his side and was hit too. A medal that had been pinned to Hussein's chest at his grandfather's insistence deflected the bullet and saved his life. Once Hussein became king, the assassination of Abdullah was said to have influenced Hussein not to enter peace talks with Israel in the aftermath of the Six-Day War in order to avoid a similar fate.

The assassin was a 21-year-old tailor's apprentice, Mustafa Ashu, who according to Alec Kirkbride, the British Resident in Amman, was a "former terrorist", Zakariya Okkeh a livestock dealer and butcher. Ten conspirators were accused of plotting the assassination and were brought to trial in Amman. The prosecution named Colonel Abdullah el Tell, ex-Military Governor of Jerusalem, and Dr. Musa Abdullah Husseini as the chief plotters of "the most dastardly crime Jordan ever witnessed." The Jordanian prosecutor asserted that Col. Tell, who had been living in Cairo since January 1950, had given instructions that the killer, made to act alone, be slain at once thereafter to shield the instigators of the crime. Jerusalem sources added that Col. Tell had been in close contact with the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husayni, and his adherents in Arab Palestine. Tell and Dr. Husseini, and three co-conspirators from Jerusalem were sentenced to death. On 6 September 1951 Dr. Musa Ali Husseini, 'Abid and Zakariyya Ukah, and Abd-el-Qadir Farhat were executed by hanging.

Abdullah was succeeded by his son Talal; however, since Talal was mentally ill, Talal's son Prince Hussein became the effective ruler as King Hussein at the age of seventeen. In 1967 Abdullah el Tell received a full pardon from King Hussein.