Jordanian king's grandfather dies

AMMAN, Jordan - The British grandfather of Jordan's King Abdullah II died in Amman yesterday at age 95, the Jordanian royal court announced.

The body of Walter Percy Gardiner, a retired British army colonel from Norfolk, will be buried today in Jordan in special ceremonial arrangements, a royal court statement said.

The court also announced a one-week mourning period throughout the country for Gardiner, father of Princess Mona al-Hussein, King Abdullah's mother.

The princess was born in Britain in 1941 as Antoinette Gardiner and was married to the late King Hussein, King Abdullah's father, in 1961. They divorced in 1971.

-McClatchy News Service