Man jailed after dispute with supervisor ends in stabbing

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a March 2021 Criminal Court ruling, sentencing a man to 12 years in prison after convicting him of attempting to murder his colleague in Amman in November 2019.

The Criminal Court declared the defendant guilty of attempted murder on November 30, sentencing him to a 20-year prison term.

However, the court decided to reduce the sentence to 12 years after the victim dropped charges.

Court papers identified the 45-year-old victim as a Syrian national who worked with the defendant in one of the capital’s malls.

“The victim was the defendant’s supervisor and had some negative comments about his work performance,” the court said.

The court continued that this friction “created hatred between the victim and the defendant, and caused them to fight on several occasions”. 

Court documents also explained that the two engaged in a heated argument three days before the incident, which ended with the “defendant being fired from his job at the mall”.

“The defendant plotted to murder the victim and prepared a knife,” the court stated.

On the day of the incident, the defendant monitored the victim’s movements and proceeded to attack him in the street with the knife, the court added.

“The defendant aimed to stab the victim in the heart, but was unable to because the victim shielded his heart with his hands,” the court papers elaborated.

The defendant managed to stab the victim four times, each in different parts of his body, the court papers added.

The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital and survived the “stabbing incident after undergoing several surgeries,” the court papers maintained.

The Criminal Court’s attorney general asked the higher court to uphold the 12-year sentence.

The higher court ruled that the Criminal Court proceedings were accurate and that the defendant was given the appropriate punishment.

The Cassation Court bench was composed of judges Mahmoud Ebtoush, Majid Azab, Hayel Amr, Fawzi Nahar and Ibrahim Abu Shamma.