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Ammon News - By Banan Malkawi

AMMONNEWS - A prominent Jordanian businessman on Tuesday denied any connection with contested state lands in Ma'an in response to news reports following recent protest in the southern governorate that indicated that tribal front state lands were registered in his name.

Majdi Al Yassin issued a statement on Tuesday denying the reports and stressing that he is willing to provide the press with documents to prove his claims.

Yassin, who is Queen Rania Al Abdullah's younger brother, said that electronic news sites published reports regarding the protests in Ma'an earlier in the week against the registering of disputed state lands in the name of a prominent businessman, "whose method of ownership of the large area of land is widely controversial," according to the statement.

"Some of the sites noted my name as the owner of the stated lands, and comments on other sites shoved my name also in this context," Al Yassin said in a statement sent to Ammon News.

"Whereas I confirm that I do not own the stated lands - currently or in the past - I call on the government to disclose with all transparency the owners of the stated lands and the dates of ownership," Al Yassin added.

The statement comes on the backof a protest staged last Sunday in Ma'an against registering state land that they were using to the Ma'an Development Company (MDC).

The protest ended later on Sunday after the government took a decision to award the contested land to the Tawhid and Badr Cooperative Societies, whose members cultivated the land for over two decades and organized Sunday's protest.

"In means of clarifying facts to those who propagate rumors irresponsibly to the degree that my name has been linked to corruption and corrupt figures," Al Yassin said that he is the only son of Dr. Faisal Al Yassin and sole businessman in the family "and have no business relationships with any other relatives," other than a poultry company in which he is a partner with his father's uncle Salah Al Yassin, the statement noted in a footnote.

"I have always been careful in my business relationships and transactions so as I do not enter into any partnership that may be accounted on anyone, or understood as exploitation of my family relations," Al Yassin said, adding that "despite that, I find myself today used as a tool in a campaign that I do not know its motives, but will embark on disproving its claims."

Al Yassin stressed that neither him, nor any member of his family, personally own any state land directly or through the agency of any company or individual, and that no such lands in any part of the kingdom has been registered in their names.

"To corroborate this, I am ready to provide all the necessary official legal power of attorney documents to the lawyers of Al Rai, Addustour, Al Ghad, Al Arab Al Yawm newspapers, and Ammon News, Saraya, and Khaberni news websites to look into this," Al Yassin stressed.

In concluding his statement, Al Yassin said that he wishes that any journalist who has any proof pertaining to the 'fabricated lies,' - according to his expression - to bring it forward, stressing that he is willing to respond to any questions that are documented with proof.

"I do not have anything to hide, and I am responsible for my actions," Al Yassin said.