Jordan: Top Officials Are Forced Out

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/18/world/middleeast/jordan-top-officials-are-forced-out.html

Version 0 of 1.

King Abdullah of Jordan accepted the resignation of the interior minister and the government dismissed the chief of police over reported abuses in prisons and the mishandling of a crackdown in the south, officials said Sunday. Two officials said that the king had accepted the resignation of Interior Minister Hussein al-Majali and that a decision was made to retire the heads of the country’s police and gendarme. One official said the reasons were a heavy-handed police crackdown in the southern tribal city of Maan and the torture of a detainee during interrogation that led to his death. The death in custody this month of a member of a prominent tribe in northern Jordan after he was arrested on drug charges prompted charges of police brutality. Jordan’s rulers are careful not to anger the tribes, which provide most of the manpower for the country’s security forces and form the bedrock of support for the Hashemite monarchy.