AMMAN — The Amman Criminal Court on Tuesday listened to five prosecution witnesses in twin cases of alleged corruption at the Jordan Phosphate Mines Company (JMPC).

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) prosecutors have indicted the former JPMC chairman, Walid Kurdi, with 10 counts of “abuse of office” during his service at the head of the firm in 2008-2011.

Kurdi is a suspect in a case involving marketing and shipping deals the JPMC signed with foreign firms.

An investigation showed that the JPMC had ignored contracts with the Jordan International Chartering Company (JICC), of which the JPMC owns more than 30 per cent, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported.

The ACC investigation unveiled that those foreign companies had signed several sea freight agreements with the JICC at prices lower than those agreed on with the JPMC, although the deals could have been conducted with the JICC directly, according to prosecutors.

The commission estimated the difference in contracts between 2008 and 2011 to exceed $40 million.

The court listened to five witnesses on Tuesday, including the company’s financial department CEO, Sanaa Qaraeen, head of the freight section Firas Abu Hassan, head of the market research department Hussein Abu Eleim and the technical manager of the same department Mohammad Diab Momani.

Abu Hassan from the freight department said he was supposed to be involved in all freight contracts, but all related authorities were vested in Deputy CEO Suheil Misleh, who coordinated all freight transactions and management with the defendant.

He said that before the company was privatised in 2007, the ship mooring was carried out by JICC, but after that the process was handled by Sincomex, a freight company.

He told the court that Kurdi owned a shipping agency that represented Indonesian and Indian importers of Jordanian phosphates.

Abu Eleim said in his testimony that his department, market research, was completely ignored when it came to signing contracts, and when he faced Kurdi over suspicions related to the deals, no measure was taken to correct the situation.

The witness, who had tipped the anti-corruption directorate then, said he discovered that shipments of fertilisers had been changed to better-quality consignments, but still sold at the same price of the low quality products.