Jordan’s king restricts movement of his half-brother Prince Hamzah

King Abdullah says the prince is still seeking to 'stir unrest' since public royal rift in April last year

King Abdullah of Jordan has restricted the movement of Prince Hamzah bin Hussein, who he says ‘will not have the space he once abused to offend the nation’. EPA

King Abdullah of Jordan said on Thursday he has restricted the ability of his estranged half-brother Prince Hamzah bin Hussein to move and communicate, in another development of the royal saga that broke last year and undermined the kingdom’s image of political stability.

The king did not say whether the move amounted to house arrest. His half-brother has not been seen in public for a year.

“We will provide Hamzah with all that he requires to live a comfortable life, but he will not have the space he once abused to offend the nation, its institutions and his family, nor to undermine Jordan’s stability,” the king said in a statement.

The king, 60, said he had made the decision after a council of royal family members recommended in December that he take these actions against his brother.

Prince Hamzah was put under house arrest in April last year. Days later the king accused him of sedition but did not bring official charges against him.

A secret court in July sentenced two men who the authorities said were associates of the prince to jail for 15 years on sedition charges. The pair, former Royal Court chief Bassem Awadallah and Sharif Hassan, a cousin of the king, denied the charges.

In April, Prince Hamzah relinquished the title of prince, apparently in a protest over how the country was run. King Abdullah said attempts to convince his brother to change his course of his behaviour had failed.

The king said he had tried “to free Hamzah from his self-induced illusions so that he could become an active member of our family”.

He said: “For several years, he has backed down on his promises and acted irresponsibly, in a way that seeks to stir unrest without paying attention to the consequences on our nation and family.”

The king said Prince Hamzah had a “suspicious relationship” with Sharif Hassan, and with Mr Awadallah, who was at the time of his arrest in April 2020 an adviser to King Salman in Saudi Arabia. Mr Hassan was arrested at the same time.

Mr Awadallah, a well-connected economist and one of the few Jordanians with a high international profile, held senior government positions in the 2000s and was one of the most powerful men in Jordan.

Without giving details, the king said Prince Hamzah knew that the two men “had approached two foreign embassies to ask about the possibility of their countries supporting what he had described as regime change.” Both Mr Awadallah and Sharif Hassan denied the sedition charges.

Hamzah was crown prince from 1999 to 2004. Upon the wishes of the late king Hussein, the father of king Abdullah and of Prince Hamzah, King Abdullah appointed Hamzah as crown prince when the king succeeded King Hussein in 1999.

In 2004, the king dismissed Prince Hamzah. The position remained vacant until king Abdullah appointed his son, Prince Hussein, who is named after his grandfather King Hussein, as crown prince in 2009.

King Abdullah implied that Prince Hamzah has held a grudge since he was removed as crown prince in 2004.

He said the royal rift in April of last year “was not the beginning of Hamzah’s state of denial.”

“He chose to stray from the legacy of his family years ago; while he claimed he had accepted my constitutional decision to restore the position of the crown prince to its original constitutional rule,” the king said.