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SV Daud's parents embrace Hussein & Prince Hassan
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CU Mother kisses Hussein's hands
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SV ZOOM TO CU Parents thanking Hussein & kissing his hand
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Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: King Hussein of Jordan and his son Crown Prince Hassan received in audience the parents of Al Fatah leader Abu Daud in Amman on Thursday (15 March). During the emotional meeting, Duad's parents thanked the monarch for his clemency in reprieving their son on the previous day.

Daud had been captured in Jordan and was charged with planning to take over government building and hold ministers hostage in exchange for the release of prisoners. He was sentenced to death by a Jordanian court. Al Fatah spokesman in Cairo denied the charges, saying that Daud and the sixteen guerrillas with him were passing through Jordan to attack Israeli targets.

Following appeals by Daud's family and various Arab head-of-state, king Hussein commuted Daud's and his companions' death sentences to indefinite imprisonment. The king denied that he had struck a deal in granting the reprieve. But in a reply to an appeal for clemency from the Kuwaiti ruler, Sheikh Sabah Al-Salim Al-Sabah, on 6th March, the King demanded, in return for a 'consideration' of reprieve, that all Palestinian commando organisations should and their attacks against Jordan.

SYNOPSIS: In Amman on Thursday, King Hussein and his son Prince Hassan of Jordan received in audience the parents of Al Fatah leader Abu Daud. The King had only the day before reprieved their son from the death sentence, commuting the punishment to one of indefinite imprisonment. During Thursday's emotional meeting, King Hussein received the tearful thanks of Daud's mother and father.

Abu Daud - real name Mohammed Daud - had been arrested in Jordan last month with sixteen fellow-guerrillas and was sentenced to death for planning to take government buildings in Amman and hold ministers hostage in exchange for the release of prisoners.

King Hussein had refused to give up Daud, when, earlier this month, guerrillas held diplomats hostage in Khartoum and demanded the release of Daud and other prisoners. But following appeals for clemency by Daud's parents and various Arab heads-of-state, King Hussein finally repealed the sentence on Wednesday.