Suspect’s sentence for stabbing sister upheld

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation upheld a May Criminal Court ruling, sentencing a 22-year-old man to five years in prison after he was convicted of attempting to murder his married sister for reasons related to family honour in Amman in November 2016.

The court declared the defendant guilty of attempting to murder his 23-year-old sister by stabbing her multiple times on November 17 and handed him a 10 year prison sentence.

However, the court decided to reduce the sentence by half because the victim’s family dropped charges against the defendant.

Court documents said the victim had constant marital problems with her husband and left the house in August 2016 with her children to live in an apartment in Amman.

A few months later her family found her, and the defendant “threatened to kill her if she left her husband’s house again and told her he has four children and any of them can kill her and end up spending only six months in jail for her murder”, according to court transcripts.

Few months later, the victim left her husband’s house again and was found by her family.

“The defendant decided to kill his sister for reasons related to family honour by luring her to her husband’s house and claiming he found her with a strange man,” the court documents stated.

The defendant informed his sibling that “she was safe and that her family welcomed her to live with them and leave her husband’s house”, according to court transcripts.

The defendant asked his sister to get her personal belongings from her husband’s house and the minute she walked in, the court documents added, “the defendant, who was waiting for her inside, jumped on his sister and stabbed her with knives that were in the kitchen”.

“The victim begged him to stop but he told her he came to kill her and continued stabbing her and finally left a knife in her chest and left thinking she was dead,” the court documents said.

 The defendant then headed to the nearest police station and turned himself in claiming to have killed his sister for reasons related to family honour, according to the court papers.

The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital and survived the stabbing incident through medical treatment, according to court papers.

The defendant contested the Criminal Court’s ruling charging that he “killed his sister in a moment of rage after seeing her with a strange man at her husband’s house”.

However, the Court of Cassation rejected his claims and ruled that the Criminal Court’s ruling was accurate and the defendant deserved the sentence he received. 

The Court of Cassation was comprised of judges Mohammad Ibrahim, Yassin Abdullat, Majed Azab, Bassem Mubeidin and Naji Zubi.