Ammon News - by Khaled Neimat | The Jordan Times

AMMAN — Authorities briefly detained two deputies in the past few days over alleged use of “political money” during their campaigns in the January parliamentary elections, according to officials and MPs.

Deputies Raed Kouz and Mohammad Dawaimeh (Amman, 2nd District), who were briefly detained as part of an investigation into their suspected involvement in buying votes to secure Lower House seats, were released on bail.

The south Amman prosecutor general decided to release Kouz on Monday, a few hours after his detention. The deputy issued a statement following his release denying his involvement in vote buying and accusing “certain powers”, without identifying them, of being behind such accusations against him.

“I challenge anyone to prove that I used political money during the elections,” he said, adding that the matter is now in the hands of the judicial authority, and that he believes in the Kingdom’s justice system.

Last week, Dawaimeh was released on bail after being briefly detained. These two cases and others have been under investigation for a few months, but authorities could not interrogate the MPs while Parliament was in session because of their immunity, a legal source said on Monday.

After a Royal Decree was issued adjourning the non-ordinary Parliament session, the deputies’ immunity is no longer in effect, the source added.

However, the investigation will be suspended again as soon as the Lower House convenes for its extraordinary session, which starts in September.

The January 23 parliamentary polls witnessed several cases of alleged use of political money and vote buying, but none were officially taken to court.

Under the 2012 Elections Law, those convicted of election crimes face between three to seven years of imprisonment.