Cassation Court upholds 10-year jail sentence for brothers who killed their uncle

AMMAN — The Cassation Court has upheld a March Criminal Court ruling sentencing two brothers to 10 years in prison for murder in 2013.

The defendants were convicted of murdering their uncle by “striking his head with an iron bar and leaving him to bleed to death on September 3, 2013".

The court said the victim was suffering from mental illness and “was the source of disturbance and shame for his family”.

On September 2, the court maintained, the victim decided to change a sink in the room where he lived alone in the same building with the defendants and an argument ensued between them about it.

“The three were engaged in a scuffle and the victim ran to a nearby shop half naked, which angered the defendants who thought he was going to complain against them,” the Criminal Court ruled.

The defendants, the Criminal Court maintained “decided to kill the victim to get rid of him and bury him without the authorities’ knowledge”.

The defendants brought the victim back to his room, tied him up “then beat him repeatedly on his head with an iron bar and left him there where he bled to death”, according to the eight-page verdict.

The court said in its ruling that it relied on DNA samples found on the iron bar, which belonged to one of the suspects, and the victim.

The defendants had contested the verdict stating that the Criminal Court “did not rely on all evidence and that it disqualified the main witness in the case".

But the Cassation Court, in a recent verdict, found that the Criminal Court’s ruling falls within the law and that the proceedings were proper and the sentence the defendants received is satisfactory.

The Cassation Court tribunal comprised judges Mahmoud Ababneh, Basel Abu Anzeh, Yassin Abdullat, Mohammad Tarawneh and Hussein Sakran.