Cassation Court upholds 10-year sentence for man who murdered sister

AMMAN — The Cassation Court has upheld a January Criminal Court ruling sentencing a 30-year-old man to 10 years in prison after convicting him of murdering his sister at a farm in the Jordan Valley in April 2015.

The Criminal Court had found the man guilty on January 25 of the manslaughter of his sibling, while in her younger brother’s tent on April 20 and sentenced him to 20 years in prison.

But the court decided to immediately reduce the sentence by half because the victim’s parents dropped charges against the defendant.

Court papers said the victim was married three times and that she divorced all of them and returned to her family.

On the day of the incident, the court maintained, the man returned to the tent after an errand and heard his younger brother fighting with his sister because she wanted to leave.

“The defendant entered the tent and saw his teenage brother stabbing his sister, so he rushed to his tent and brought a gun and shot her four times,” according to court documents.

The man contested the Criminal Court’s ruling, asking for a lighter sentence “claiming to have committed the murder in a moment of rage”.

“He also claimed that his sister attacked him with a knife and that he was defending himself when he shot and killed her,” the seven-page court verdict said.

However, the Cassation Court, which issued its ruling earlier in the month, ruled that the Criminal Court’s ruling falls within the law, that the proceedings were proper and that the sentence given was satisfactory.

“The defendant could not provide any proof that the victim attacked him with a knife and that he was defending himself. On the contrary, the victim was being stabbed by her brother when she was shot and killed by the defendant,” the higher court ruled.

The Cassation Court tribunal comprised judges Yassin Abdullat, Mohammad Tarawneh, Daoud Tubeileh, Mohammad Ersheidat and Basem Mubeidin.

The younger brother is being tried in a juvenile court.