Police detain husband in connection with wife's murder

AMMAN — The Criminal Court prosecutor on Thursday charged a man with premeditated murder in connection with the death of his 20-year-old wife in Amman a day earlier, official sources said.

The 28-year-old suspect, who worked at a local school in his neighbourhood, reportedly shot his wife while she was sleeping and then fled from the house, a senior police source said.

“The suspect then fled to the Jordan Valley where he was arrested by the police,” the official told The Jordan Times.

The suspect had three guns on him when he was arrested, the police official added.

In his initial confession to police and the Criminal Court prosecutor, the suspect said that his wife was acting suspiciously “because she used the phone a lot and so decided to kill her”, a senior judicial source said.

A few days before the murder, the judicial source maintained, the suspect reportedly purchased three guns to “kill his wife, whom he married in December of 2018”.

“The suspect said the reason he bought three guns was to ensure that if one did not work, the second or third guns would not fail him when he attempted to kill his wife,” the judicial source told The Jordan Times.

A post-mortem conducted at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine on the victim indicated that she was shot six times, a medical source said.

“The forensic experts did not find any signs of resistance on the victim,” the medical source told The Jordan Times.

The judicial source added that the prosecution office “might refer the suspect to the National Institute of Psychiatric Medicine [NIPM], to evaluate his mental status at the time of the murder”.

“The suspect acted strangely while being questioned and most probably he will be referred to the NIPM for evaluation,” the judicial source explained.

The suspect will be detained at a correctional and rehabilitation centre for 15 days pending further investigations into the case, the judicial source said.