Father charged with manslaughter in electrocution of teenage son

AMMAN — The Criminal Court prosecutor on Monday charged a 38-year-old father with manslaughter in connection with the alleged electrocution and death of his teenage son in an Amman neighbourhood on Sunday, official sources said.

The 14-year-old boy was taken to hospital by his family who claimed that he accidentally electrocuted himself and doctors in charge pronounced him dead on arrival, a senior official source said.

“Attending physicians at the hospital became suspicious after noticing some marks on the victim’s legs and alerted the authorities,” a second official source said. 

The victim’s body was transferred to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine (NIFM) for an official autopsy, the second source told The Jordan Times.

In the meantime, police summoned the father, who worked in a vegetable market, for questioning and he reportedly confessed “to killing his son while giving him electric shocks as a form of discipline”, according to the second source.

In his initial testimony to police and the Criminal Court prosecutor, the suspect claimed that he found JD5 and a cigarette with his son, according to the second official source.

When the suspect inquired about the source of money and cigarette, the source added, the boy allegedly could not provide any answers.

As a result, “the father tied his son up and gave him electric shocks with a bare wire so that he would confess”, added the source who is close to the investigation.

“The boy eventually told his father that he needed money and took the JD5 bill from his wallet and then went into a coma,” according to the senior official source.

Meanwhile, the results of the postmortem conducted by a team of pathologists at the NIFM, headed by Ahmad Bani Hani and including Isra Tawalbeh and Zeid Azzeh is still pending, a senior medical source said.

“The forensic team is still waiting for the criminal lab results on samples taken from the victim’s body, which will take around two weeks, before issuing a final report to indicate the cause of death,” the senior medical source told The Jordan Times.