Man jailed for 20 years for murdering sister in name of 'family honour'

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation upheld a September Criminal Court ruling, sentencing a man to 20 years in prison after convicting him of murdering his sister for reasons related to "family honour" in Madaba in March of 2016.

The court declared the defendant guilty of murdering his sister by strangling her while at her father's home on March 14 and handed him the maximum penalty.

Court documents said the victim got married in 2014 and “was constantly leaving her husband’s home in Ruseifeh to unknown destinations”.

On the day of the murder, the court maintained, the victim’s husband contacted her father to inform him that his daughter left the house again for an unknown destination and that he wanted to divorce her.

“The victim's father became enraged and asked the defendant to bring her back from her husband’s home,” the court documents stated.

The defendant went to the victim’s house in Rusiefeh and took her back to her family’s home in Madaba, according to court papers said.

When they arrived at their family's home, the court maintained, “the father asked the defendant to kill his daughter to cleanse his family’s honour”, court transcripts stated.

“The defendant strangled the victim with his hands, then took her body to a deserted area and buried her,” the court documents said.

The victim’s father asked his second son to report her missing to conceal the murder, according to court papers.

Almost four years later, the court maintained, the murder was discovered when the defendant was questioned by police and “confessed to killing his sister to cleanse his family honour because of her bad reputation”.

The defendant ushered authorities to where “he buried his sister,” the court papers added.

The authorities exhumed skeletal remains from the location that the defendant pointed them to, and a DNA test later proved that they belonged to the victim, the court added.

The victim’s father and her second brother died during the four-year period and were not prosecuted as accessories to the murder, the court maintained.

The Criminal Court’s general attorney asked the court to uphold the sentence.

Meanwhile, the defendant contested the Criminal Court’s ruling through his lawyer claiming that he did not murder his sister and that “his deceased father and brother were the perpetrators”.

The defendant claimed that he was subjected to “torture and duress by the police to confess that he had killed his sister,” the court stated.

However, the Court of Cassation rejected his claims and ruled that the Criminal Court’s ruling was accurate and the defendant deserved the sentence he had received.

“The defendant had confessed to killing his sister and provided explicit details to the police and the Criminal Court prosecutor,” the Court of Cassation said.

The higher court added that “even if the victim had a bad reputation, this does not justify her murder”, the 12-page verdict stated.

The Court of Cassation comprised judges Yassin Abdullat, Hayel Amr, Fawzi Nahar and Ibrahim Abu Shamma.