Family of Palestinian journalist killed in Tlaa Al Ali want death sentence for shooter

AMMAN — A man who was shot dead in Amman’s Tlaa Al Ali neighbourhood last Thursday was a Palestinian journalist, according to his relatives in Jordan who want the shooter to be sentenced to death. 

The victim, who was wandering around a residential building in the area, was identified as Mohammad Ahed Samhan, from the village of Ras Karkar in Ramallah.

His relative, Ziad Samhan, told The Jordan Times on Saturday that the Jordanian Majali tribe, to which the shooter belongs, has signed a confession document and delegated tribal leaders and parliamentary figures in the presence of security officials to complete the tribal procedures in this case.

Under tribal law, a killer’s tribe should sign a document addressed to the family of the victim requesting reconciliation and prevention of retribution. 

Ziad said his 30-year-old relative was in Amman to renew his Jordanian passport and rented an apartment in Tlaa Al Ali. 

“At dawn on Thursday, Mohammad was trying to return to the apartment but could not find it because he was unfamiliar with the area,” Ziad said, adding the young man went to the building where the shooter resides by mistake believing his rented apartment was located there. 

“He was told by the janitor that it was the wrong address but kept wandering around in the area and returned to the same building,” he added, indicating that a man in his fifties and his four sons went down to see what was going on. 

According to a statement released by the Public Security Department (PSD) last Thursday, “the victim was wandering around in the area… and the building guard notified the residents.”

The 50-year-old suspect and other residents asked the victim to leave “and he did leave briefly but returned to the building, so the suspect shot him with his gun, striking him in the head”, the PSD statement said, adding that the suspect claimed that he “did not intend to kill the man but rather scare him away”.

In his initial testimony, the suspect claimed the victim was wandering around in the area near the building in order to rob it and that is why he fired his weapon, a judicial source told The Jordan Times.

A check was run on the victim and it was established that he had no criminal record and was not convicted of any robberies, the judicial source added.

Criminal Court Prosecutor Issam Haddidi, who questioned the suspect, decided to charge him with manslaughter. 

But Ziad said the man shot Mohammad immediately in the head without asking him what he has doing. 

The journalist was laid to rest in his hometown in Palestine, Ziad added.

The Majalis, a prominent tribe in the southern governorate of Karak, issued a statement on Saturday apologising for the incident.