AMMAN: Jordan's state security court has upheld a five-year prison sentence for a militant known as the mentor of slain Al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The Palestinian-born Isam Mohammad Taher al-Barqawi, better known as Sheik Abu Mohammad al-Maqdisi, was sentenced last July for "plotting terrorism" and recruiting militants in Jordan to join the Afghan Taliban.

He was tried in a military court with three other Jordanian Palestinians. Maqdisi's lawyers had appealed the sentence but their motion was rejected.

Maqdisi has served several jail terms in Jordan. In the 1990s, he shared a jail cell with Zarqawi, who was killed by a U.S. airstrike in 2006 in Iraq. Zarqawi had described him as a mentor.