Man gets 20-year jail term for killing neighbour

AMMAN — The Cassation Court has upheld a December Criminal Court decision to sentence a man to 20 years in prison after convicting him of murdering his neighbour in November 2017.

The Criminal Court handed the defendant the maximum sentence after convicting him of strangling the 29-year-old victim with a rope after finding him in his house with his divorced sister on November 11.

Court documents said the victim developed a relationship with the defendant's 31-year-old divorced sister a few months before the incident and the affair was exposed.

“The defendant and his siblings asked their sister to stop her communication with the victim but she did not,” according to court papers.

On the day of the incident, the court maintained, “the defendant’s sister contacted the victim late at night and he came to her room without her family noticing him”.

“The woman’s father discovered that the victim was in his daughter’s room so he went to the defendant’s house that is adjacent to his home and asked him to come over and told him what happened,” court papers said.

The father informed his son, the defendant, that he was going to call the police so the victim attempted to escape from the house, court transcripts said.

The defendant attacked the victim and managed to tie his legs with a rope after he showed strong resistance, court documents said.

“The defendant tied a rope around the victim’s neck and strangled him because he continued to resist before police arrived to the house,” the court papers added.

The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital by an ambulance but was declared dead on arrival, according to court transcripts. 

Meanwhile, the defendant’s sister managed to escape from the house and was later arrested by police and placed under protective custody to protect her from her family, according to court papers.

The defendant contested the court ruling arguing that he “should benefit from a reduction in penalty because he killed the victim in a moment of rage”.

However, the Cassation Court ruled that the Criminal Court’s judgement fell within the law, that the proceedings were proper and that the sentence given was satisfactory.

“The victim was already subdued by the defendant and the police were called to the scene" so this was not a crime of passion, the higher court ruled.