Man charged with premeditated murder of half sister for ‘family honour’

AMMAN — The Criminal Court prosecutor on Wednesday charged a 53-year-old man with the premeditated murder of his married half-sister for reasons related to the so-called "family honour" in Zarqa a day earlier, official source said.

The 28-year-old victim, who has four children under the age of 10, was reportedly shot by her half-brother on Tuesday night while at her family’s home, a senior judicial source said.

“The suspect asked everyone to leave the house, then shot his half-sister four times in the head before heading to the nearest police station where he turned himself in claiming family honour as his motive,” the senior judicial source said.

The suspect also reportedly handed officers on duty “an unlicensed gun, which he claimed he used to murder his half-sister”, the senior judicial source told The Jordan Times.

In his initial testimony in front of Criminal Court Prosecutor Afif Khawaldeh, the suspect claimed that “his half-sister was involved in an extra-marital affair with a taxi driver for around a month”, a second source told The Jordan Times.

“The victim, who had been married for eight years and resided with her husband in Aqaba, returned to her family’s home almost a month ago to treat her son in Zarqa and it seems that she established a relationship with a taxi driver she met while visiting the hospital,” the source said, quoting initial confession by the suspect.

The matter was allegedly exposed “when the taxi driver decided to expose the illegitimate relationship with the woman and notified her family and husband, and showed them her photos on his mobile,” according to the official source.

The taxi driver’s motives behind exposing the alleged relationship are "not clear", the official source added.

On Tuesday night, the source maintained, the suspect entered his half-sister’s room to inquire about the alleged affair, according to the source.

“The suspect claimed that his half-sister confessed so he shot her four times although she tried to hide under the bed to protect herself,” the second source said.

The suspect told Khawaldeh that “he wished his half-sister did not confess because he was forced to kill her", stressing that "if he did not, the entire family would be shamed by their neighbours and relatives…anyone else would have done the same if put in the same situation”, according to a source close to the investigations.

“Police are following up on the taxi driver and will most probably arrest him on charges of ruining marriage ties and possible instigating the murder of the woman,” the source continued.

A team of government pathologists at the Zarqa National Institute of Forensic Medicine headed by Adnan Abbas, and included Mansour Maaytah and Alaa Btoush who performed the autopsy on the victim, a senior medical source said.

 “The autopsy indicated that the victim was shot at close range and that the bullets entered her head from the side,” the medical source told The Jordan Times.

The defendant was ordered detained by Khawaldeh for 15 days at a correctional and rehabilitation centre pending further investigations.