Man acquitted, wife gets 10-month jail term for death of their domestic helper

AMMAN — The Criminal Court on Thursday sentenced a woman to 10 months in prison and acquitted her husband in the death of their 33-year-old Bangladeshi domestic helper in Irbid in March 2016.

The court declared the defendant guilty of causing the death of the victim while at their home on March 12 and handed her 10 months in prison.

“The defendant already spent one year in prison and was released on bail,” her lawyer Sami Karaki said.

He told The Jordan Times that the husband, who was also released on bail, was acquitted of charges of causing the death of the woman “for lack of evidence”.

The tribunal decided to amend the manslaughter charges originally pressed against the defendant to "causing the death of an individual" based on testimonies of forensic experts who ruled that the victim’s death was the result of medical illness, according to Karaki.

“Five government pathologists testified in court that the beatings by the couple could not have caused the death of the women because she suffered from heart problems and other vital organs that caused her death,” Karaki explained.

He added that this is “a just verdict because the court relied on the experts’ testimonies that proved my clients did not cause her death”.

Court documents said the couple would “beat up the victim regularly because she was not good at house work and was not clean”.

The couple also wanted her “to work harder and used beating with hands and blunt objects”.

On the day of the incident, the court maintained, “the couple beat up the victim and she went to take a shower and was later found dead”.
The victim had been working for the suspects, who have three daughters under five years old, for the past year-and-a-half. 

The tribunal comprised judges Mohammad Bloush, Amar Kloub and Tareq Shakhanbeh.

The court verdict is subject to appeal by the Criminal Court General Attorney’s office at the Court of Cassation within the next 30 days.