Accountant charged with premeditated murder

AMMAN — The Criminal Court prosecutor on Tuesday charged a 42-year-old accountant with premeditated murder in connection with the shooting of a woman in the capital’s Um Uthaina suburb on Sunday, official sources said.

Criminal Court Prosecutor Afif Khawaldeh also charged the suspect, a father of five, with possession of an illegal weapon, according to a senior judicial source close to the investigations.

The 30-year-old victim, a resident of Zarqa, was shot multiple times in different parts of her body while entering a commercial building on Sunday evening.

In his initial confession to police, the suspect told investigators that he first met the victim, an industrial engineer, three years ago when the two were working together in the same establishment in Zarqa, 22km east of Amman, and alleged that “their friendship turned into a relationship”.

“Early this year the suspect, who is married, felt the woman no longer cared about him and was growing more distant,” the source told The Jordan Times.

He then decided to “take revenge and kill her because she was no longer loyal to him”, the source said, quoting the suspect’s preliminary confession to Khawaldeh.

On the day of the incident, the suspect followed the woman and shot her 11 times as she was entering the building and fled, the source said.

A second source told The Jordan Times that the police arrested the suspect in less than 24 hours after they traced the woman’s cellphone calls, questioned witnesses at the scene who gave a good description of his car and went over the footage of surveillance cameras in the area. 

Khawaldeh issued orders for the suspect to be detained at a correctional and rehabilitation centre for 15 days pending further investigation.