Cassation Court upholds accidental shooting ruling in death of 28-year-old woman

AMMAN — The Cassation Court has upheld a May Criminal Court ruling sentencing a service cab driver to three years in prison for accidentally shooting and killing his wife in an Amman suburb in May 2014.

The Criminal Court ruled that the man's premeditated murder charges should be amended to accidental shooting.

“The tribunal decided to hand the defendant the maximum sentence of accidental shooting due to his recklessness and negligence in handling a weapon, which resulted in the death of his wife,” the Criminal Court ruled in May.

The defendant was standing trial on charges of shooting his 28-year-old wife of 10-years of marriage with a pump-action gun while at their home on May 21.

The court said the couple would often experience regular marital problems and the victim would return to her family’s home for a while and back to her husband’s home.

On the day of the incident, the court maintained, the defendant bought a pump-action gun and gave it to his sister to give to his wife to hide.

When the defendant returned home, the court maintained, he asked his wife for the weapon and she gave it to him.

“While the defendant was playing with the weapon thinking it was empty a bullet was accidentally discharged, striking his wife in the neck,” the six-page verdict said.

The defendant screamed for help and one of his neighbours called the ambulance, the court said.

The woman was rushed to a nearby hospital but was declared dead on arrival, the court added.

The attorney general had contested the Criminal Court ruling, stating that the court did not “thoroughly question the prosecution witnesses in the case, including the victim’s mother who testified that the victim was constantly quarrelling with her husband”.

The attorney general also argued that the defendant bought the weapon and kept it in the house a few months prior to the incident “which means that he plotted to murder his wife.”

The Criminal Court, he added, should have amended the premeditated murder charges to manslaughter “if it had been convinced that the defendant did not plot the murder and not change the charge to accidental shooting”.

However, the Cassation Court, which issued its ruling recently, said it concluded that the defendant brought the weapon on the day of the murder and “he did not quarrel with his wife.”

“The fact that he called for neighbours’ help to rescue his wife is an indication that he had no intention of murdering her,” the Cassation Court ruled.

Therefore, the higher court maintained, the Criminal Court’s ruling falls within the law and its proceedings were proper.

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