Two women charged with manslaughter in alleged strangling death of sister-in-law

AMMAN — Two women were charged on Sunday with manslaughter in connection with the reported choking death of their 33-year-old sister-in-law in Amman last week, official sources said.

The victim, who was not identified by officials, was rushed to Al Bashir Hospital by her husband on February 25 after he found her unconscious at home, a senior judicial source said.

Attending physicians detected bruises on the victim’s neck and other parts of her body and alerted the authorities, the judicial source told The Jordan Times.

The general attorney’s office at the Criminal Court ordered an autopsy, the judicial source said, adding that “it was revealed that the woman had been murdered”.

Police Spokesperson Lt. Col. Amer Sartawi said: “A special team was formed to investigate the incident and it concluded that her sisters-in-law were the perpetrators”.

“The suspects claimed that they had engaged in a heated argument with the victim and ended up beating her with their hands and strangling her,” Sartawi told The Jordan Times.

The officials refrained from revealing the cause of the argument, citing the confidentiality of investigation.

The two suspects were ordered detained at Juweideh Correctional and Rehabilitation Centre for 15 days pending further investigation.

Also on Sunday, the judicial source told The Jordan Times that a woman who was reportedly shot by her brother earlier this month in Balqa Governorate remains in the hospital in stable condition.

The victim was shot five times, reportedly by her brother, while at their home in Deir Alla on February 5.

The suspect then headed to the nearest police station and turned himself in, handing officers on duty a gun that "he claimed to have used to shoot his sister", the official source added. 

The judicial source told The Jordan Times on Sunday that initial investigations into the incident indicated that the suspect “shot his sister over financial and inheritance matters”.

“We are still investigating the incident and questioning family members, but the main finding is that the woman was shot for inheritance reasons,” the judicial source said.

The source added that the suspect was charged with attempted premeditated murder and ordered to be detained at a correctional and rehabilitation centre for 15 days.