Woman gets death penalty for killing husband

AMMAN – The Criminal Court sentenced a 56-year-old woman to death after convicting her of murdering her husband in one of the Kingdom’s governorates in October 2014.

The court acquitted the victim’s 30-year-old brother, who was detained for the same case pending trial for three years in prison, due to lack of evidence, his lawyer Riad Qaisy said.

The court declared the defendant guilty of stabbing her husband to death with a switchblade on October 12 and handed her the maximum punishment.

The couple had been wed for 15 years and had a 10-year-old daughter at the time of the murder, the court said.

Court papers said the victim had suspicions that his wife was engaged in “an affair with his brother, the other defendant, and was abusing her about it”.

“The victim’s wife planned to murder her husband almost three months before the incident in order to get him out of the way. She decided to kill him when he had consumed large amounts of alcohol then fell asleep,” the 24-page verdict read.

On October 12, the court maintained, the defendant waited until her husband “consumed large amounts of alcohol and slept and started stabbing him with the switchblade”.

“The defendant then covered her husband’s body with trash bags, called his family and claimed that he was missing,” the court transcripts said.

The following day, the court added, the defendant dragged her husband’s body outside the house and started screaming “that unidentified individuals dumped her husband’s body and fled”.

However, investigators “did not believe her story and, after further investigation, the defendant confessed and ushered the police to the switchblade that she used then got rid of in a nearby dumpster,” according to court papers.

Lawyer Qaisi told The Jordan Times that the verdict was fair to his client, but expressed his discontent “regarding the three years during which his client was imprisoned for a crime he did not commit”.

“My client was wrongfully charged and kept in prison for three years, which is the duration of trial and investigations. Who will compensate him for the three years he lost behind bars?” Qaisi said.

The verdicts, handed down by judges Mohammad Baloush, Ammar Kloub and Tareq Shakhanbeh, will automatically be reviewed by the court of cassation within the next 30 days.