Court sentences woman to death for killing father

AMMAN — The Criminal Court on Monday sentenced a 23-year-old woman to death after convicting her of murdering her father in Karak in the summer of 2015.

The woman stood motionless upon hearing the verdict read out by presiding judge Majed Rafaiah, a senior judicial source said.

“The defendant had no reaction, as if she was expecting the capital punishment,” the judicial source told The Jordan Times.

The court declared the woman, an English major student, guilty of shooting her 60-year-old father with his own gun while he was sleeping and handed her the maximum punishment.

Court documents said the defendant wanted to work as a teacher at a private school in Karak, but her father opposed the idea and “also restricted her movements and opposed the way she dressed”, according to the charge sheet prepared by Criminal Court Prosecutor Mohammad Bdairat.

“The defendant plotted to kill her father to get rid of his control over her life and she knew that he had a gun in the house,” the court ruling said.

On the day of the murder, the court verdict maintained, “the defendant grabbed her father’s gun from a cupboard where he was hiding it and shot him next to his ear while he was sleeping”.

“The defendant then left the room and kept checking on him until she made sure he was dead,” according to the court verdict.

Family members found him dead in his room, with blood coming out of his ear and “thought he died due to health reasons”, the court papers said.

But an autopsy conducted on the victim indicated that he died from a bullet wound and the woman was subsequently arrested, the court added.

Criminal Court Prosecutor Ali Raqqad had asked the court to inflict the maximum punishment against the woman.

Monday’s verdict will automatically be reviewed by the Cassation Court within the next 30 days.