2 men get prison terms in 'honour killing' case

AMMAN — The Cassation Court has upheld a February Criminal Court verdict, sentencing a man to a reduced term after convicting him of murdering his sister for reasons related to “family honour” in Amman in November 2018.

The higher court also upheld a 20-year sentence passed against the victim’s husband for inciting the murder of the victim. The victim’s sibling first received the death penalty after being convicted of the premeditated murder of his sister taking place in the family's house in Jabal Nasser on November 6.

However, the court decided to reduce the sentence to 15 years because the victim’s family dropped charges against the defendant.

The court decided to further decrease the sentence by half because the defendant benefitted from the General Pardon.

The second defendant’s prison term remained unchanged by the court.

Court documents said the victim worked for the second defendant, who owned a spices shop, in early 2018.

“The victim was sexually assaulted by the defendant and he decided to marry her to escape punishment as stipulated in Article 308 of the Penal Code before it was cancelled,” court papers said.

However, the defendant did not want to spend five years married to the victim as Article 308 used to stipulate, so he started “to spread rumours that she was seeing other men and informed the first defendant”, court papers said.

The victim’s brother was “also violent with the victim and would often beat her up so she filed a complaint against him at the police station”, the court added.

Few days before the incident, the court maintained, the victim’s husband contacted her brother and claimed again that he saw “his wife coming out of expensive vehicles in their neighbourhood and that she was involved in immoral acts”.

As a result, the court continued, the defendant plotted to murder his sister and “bought a knife for that purpose”.

On the day of the murder, the court said, the defendant went to his family’s home for a visit and acted in a normal manner with everyone, including the victim.

“While the victim laid on her family’s bed talking to her brother, he pulled the knife he bought and stabbed her repeatedly on different parts of her body,” court papers said.

His father attempted to stop him, but it was too late, the court said, adding that the defendant headed to the nearest police station and turned himself in.

The defendant claimed that he “killed his sister to cleanse his family’s honour, and that she brought him and his family shame”, according to court documents.

The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital but was declared dead on arrival, the court said.

The higher court ruled that both verdicts were accurate and that the defendants’ sentences were accurate and within the law.

The Cassation Court tribunal comprised judges Mohammad Ibrahim, Yassin Abdullat, Bassim Mubeidin, Majid Azab and Saeed Mugheid.