23-year-old charged with premeditated murder of superior at work

AMMAN — The criminal court prosecutor on Thursday charged a 23-year-old man with the premeditated murder of his superior at work a day earlier near Madaba Bridge, according to an official source.

Criminal Court Prosecutor Mohammad Daradkeh also charged two men, including the suspect’s 21-year-old brother, with complicity in premeditated murder, the senior judicial source said.

The 27-year-old victim was found shot dead in his vehicle early Wednesday morning close to a factory where he worked, according to a statement released by the Public Security Department.

“The victim was shot once in the head based on preliminary coroners’ reports,” the statement said.

Investigators collected evidence from the scene, then visited the victim’s workplace and concluded that the suspect, who worked in the same factory as the victim, was the main perpetrator, the judicial source told The Jordan Times.

Upon questioning the suspect, “he reportedly confessed to shooting the victim, who was in charge of the quality section at the factory, because he would often give him a hard time and criticise his work performance,” the source said.

“The suspect claimed he was furious because the victim was stern with him at work and annoyed him, so he decided to frighten him,” he added.

The suspect said he asked one of his friends to lend him his unlicensed gun and “asked his brother to give him a ride on the day of the incident”, the source noted.

“The suspect claimed that they intercepted the victim’s car and that he waved the gun to scare him, but a scuffle ensued that resulted in one shot being fired at the victim,” he said.

The suspect, who has one child, returned home and “hid the gun in the backyard of his house, and on Thursday called his workplace asking for a day off”, the source said.

However, Daradkeh was not convinced by the suspect’s story and decided to level premeditated charges against him, according to the source.

The prosecutor has issued summons for the victim’s and the suspect’s colleagues at work to learn more about the motives behind the murder, the source said.

The suspects were ordered detained for 15 days at a correctional and rehabilitation centre pending further investigation into the incident.

Angry residents of the victim’s hometown in Salt, some 35km northwest of Amman, “burnt tyres and closed roads briefly on Wednesday night to protest against the killing and demand immediate investigation procedures by the police”, a second source told The Jordan Times.