Mission & Justice

Rana Husseini; 10/8/08

Authorities on Saturday charged a 50-year-old man with the manslaughter of his widowed niece in Zarqa on Thursday night, official sources said. The 38-year-old victim, who was not identified by officials, was reportedly stabbed to death by the suspect, who then attempted to stab himself, an official source told The Jordan Times. “Both were rushed to a nearby hospital where the victim was declared dead on arrival and the suspect was treated for light stab wounds,” the source said. A second source told The Jordan Times on Saturday that the victim’s father died on Friday of a heart attack brought on by the “grief and shock of losing his daughter”. In his initial testimony to authorities from his hospital bed, the suspect told investigators that he saw a man walking near the backyard of the victim’s home, the official source said.

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Rana Husseini; 10/5/08

Authorities are questioning a 22-year-old man, who allegedly killed his pregnant married sister on Wednesday evening for reasons related to family honour, official sources said. The 20-year-old victim, who was not identified by officials, received three fatal bullets to the side of her head, reportedly by her brother, at her in-laws’ house in the Wadi Seer area, according to the sources. The victim was three months pregnant, the sources said, adding that the suspect immediately headed to the nearest police station and turned himself in, handing over the gun he reportedly used to shoot his sibling, to officers on duty. “The suspect told police he had just killed his sister to cleanse his family’s honour,” the source told The Jordan Times.

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Rana Husseini; 2/5/08

The Criminal Court has sentenced a 20-year-old man to 10 years in prison for murdering his married sister for reasons related to family honour last year. The tribunal initially handed Khalil M. the death penalty for stabbing his sister to death in an Amman neighbourhood on October 23, but the sentence was immediately reduced to 10 years after the victim’s family dropped charges against their son. Court papers said the victim, who had been married twice, was divorced from her first husband because she would often leave home without his permission and go to the house of a man she was in love with. In mid-2006, the court added, she left her second husband’s home after four months of marriage and went to stay with the same man.

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