Man handed death penalty for murder of wife

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a November 2022 Criminal Court ruling, sentencing a 49-year-old truck driver to death after convicting him of murdering his wife in her car in Amman in October 2021.

The court declared the defendant guilty of shooting and killing the 39-year-old victim, a mother of three children, on October 4 in the Istiklal neighbourhood, minutes after she dropped her children off at a street near the family’s home so they could get onto their school bus. 

The defendant was sentenced to death for the offence.

Court papers said the couple, who had been married since 2005, had constant marital problems and the victim returned to her family’s home with her children on several occasions.

“The defendant would often beat up his wife and threaten to kill her in front of her children, who were aged 16, 14 and 8 at the time of the incident,” the court stated.

The defendant had “become suspicious of his wife’s behaviour because she was using social media constantly”, the court documents said.

A few months before the incident, the court maintained, “the defendant kicked his wife out of the home, so she and her children stayed at her family’s house,” according to the court.

“The victim notified her family that her husband was constantly threatening to kill her in front of her children,” according to the court papers.

Two days before the incident, the defendant asked his wife to return home, but she refused, the court maintained.

On the day of the murder, “the defendant, who knew his wife’s daily routine, got into a taxi and asked the driver to follow his wife’s vehicle”, the court papers said.

“The defendant asked the driver to follow his wife’s vehicle and eventually forced her to stop,” the court papers said.

The defendant jumped into his wife’s vehicle, “punched her in the face, then drew a gun and shot her five times,” according to the court papers.

The defendant then left the vehicle and escaped on foot, but was later arrested by police, the court papers added.

Shortly after his arrest, the defendant told investigators that he had coincidentally spotted the victim driving her vehicle on a street near their home at approximately 6:45am.

However, a senior judicial source told The Jordan Times that investigators did not believe the defendant’s story, stating that "it was clear to investigators that the premeditation element existed in this shooting incident".

The Criminal Court’s general attorney asked the Court of Cassation to uphold the ruling.  

The higher court ruled that the Criminal Court followed the proper sentencing procedure. 

The Court of Cassation judges were Mahmoud Ebtoush, Nayef Samarat, Hammad Ghzawi, Mohammad Khsashshneh and Qassem Dughmi.

In the past four years, 63 people were sentenced to death in Jordan. Currently, there are 219 convicts on death row in Jordan, including 22 women, according to local activists.

Between 2006 and 2014, Jordan maintained an eight-year pause on the death penalty, which ended in December 2014 when authorities executed 11 individuals for various crimes.

Article 93 of the Constitution reads that “no death sentence may be carried out unless ratified by the King. Every such sentence shall be submitted to him by the Cabinet along with the council’s view on the case".