Cassation Court upholds death sentence of man for killing brother-in-law

AMMAN — The Cassation Court has upheld a September 2013 Criminal Court ruling sentencing a man to death for murdering a man almost five years ago for reasons related to family honour in one of the Kingdom’s governorate.

The criminal court sentenced the defendant to death in mid-September after convicting him of murdering a man on November 15, 2010, who was engaged in an illegitimate affair with his sister, and then married her.

The relationship was disclosed after the defendant’s sister delivered a child out of wedlock, the court papers said.

The victim and the defendant’s sister were hastily married and were ordered by the governor to live in a different location, according to court transcripts.

The two moved to a different town, “but the defendant plotted to murder the victim, and two months later he learnt where the two resided,” according to the court.

Armed with a machinegun and other weapons, the court maintained, “the defendant barged into the victim’s house, stabbed him repeatedly then fired one round at him, and beat him with a blunt object until he made sure he was dead.”

“The defendant then left the house and headed to a relative and informed him that he killed the victim to cleanse his family’s honour,” the court added.

The defendant had contested the Criminal Court ruling demanding a lighter sentence since “he committed his murder in a fit of fury,” according to the 14-page verdict.

However, the five-judge tribunal at the Cassation Court disagreed and ruled that the defendant plotted the murder and therefore deserve the capital punishment.

“It was clear from the Criminal Court proceedings that the defendant planned the murder by monitoring the suspect as well as being in possession of a machinegun, a knife and a blunt object on the day of the murder,” the higher court ruled earlier this year.

The Cassation Court tribunal comprised judges Kareem Tarawneh, Yousef Tahat, Yassin Abdullat, Mohammad Tarawneh, and Bassem Mubeideen.