Teenage girl reportedly kills ‘abusive’ father

AMMAN — The criminal court prosecutor on Saturday charged an 18-year-old girl with premeditated murder in connection with the shooting death of her father over the weekend in Zarqa, official sources said.

The suspect reportedly confessed in front of Criminal Court Prosecutor Omar Hiyari to “shooting her 48-year-old father to death while he was sleeping in his flat on Friday”, a senior judicial source said.

The teenager told investigators that her father, who was married to two women, was “abusive, rough on everyone in both families and had prevented his children from continuing their education after seventh grade, and going out to attend social gatherings”, the source told The Jordan Times.

The girl said her father physically attacked her mother one day before the incident, and when she attempted to stop him he hit her as well, according to the source.

The suspect told investigators that “she was fed up with her father’s abusive treatment of everyone in both families and decided to kill him with a gun he owned and had hid in their house,” the source added.

On Friday night, the suspect allegedly took her father’s gun, went to the adjacent building where he lived on his own and fired three times at close range while he was asleep “to make sure he was dead”, according to the source.

“Two bullets struck the victim in the head and one in the back,” the source added.

Hiyari questioned the suspect’s entire family to make sure that “it was the girl who committed the murder and not someone else since she is too young to handle a gun”, a second source said.

The suspect told Hiyari that she had “seen her father use the gun repeatedly in the past and that is how she learned how to use it”, the second source told The Jordan Times.

Criminal lab experts also took swabs from the entire family to search for “gunshot residue,” the source added.

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