‘Son confesses to killing father, blaming victim’s alcoholism’

AMMAN — The Criminal Court prosecutor on Saturday charged a 43-year-old construction worker with premeditated murder in connection with the strangulation of his father in an Amman suburb last week, official sources said.

The 77-year-old’s body was found dumped near a road in the Yasmine suburb on Saturday, January 31, by a passerby who alerted the authorities, a senior judicial source said.

When coroners arrived at the scene, the judicial source told The Jordan Times, they estimated that “the victim had been dead for around 12 hours and detected ligature marks on his neck”. 

When police checked the identity of the victim, the source maintained, they discovered that his son, the suspect, “had reported him missing”.

“Police became suspicious that his son might be the perpetrator so they summoned him, and he confessed to killing his father because he [the victim] was an alcoholic,” the judicial source said.

In his initial confession to Criminal Court Prosecutor Ammar Hneifat, the suspect claimed that “his mother has been in a coma for over a year and his father would constantly consume alcohol and would drink it next to his wife”.

The suspect claimed during questioning that “he asked his father repeatedly to stop drinking alcohol, but every time he did, his father would abuse him”, according to the source.

The source, who is close to the investigations, added that the suspect claimed that “he was fed up with his father’s actions and plotted to kill him one week before the incident”.

On the day of the incident, the source said, the suspect, a resident of Zuhour suburb, snuck into his father’s vehicle. 

He then reportedly “choked him with a head cover [shmagh], dumped his body in the Yasmine suburb and headed to the police station to report his father missing”, the source said, quoting the suspect’s initial confession.

The suspect told Hneifat that “he choked his father when he had not consumed any alcohol so he could feel the pain he caused him when he was intoxicated. The suspect did not show any signs of remorse or regret while confessing”, the source added.

An autopsy performed by a team of government pathologists at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine indicated that the victim died of strangulation, according to the judicial source.

Blood and tissue samples were sent to the crime lab for further analysis, the source maintained.

The suspect has six sisters and one brother who has mental health issues 

“All the sisters are married and do not live with the victim and the brother, who was at home and has mental health issues and could not be questioned by investigators,” the source explained.

Hneifat ordered the suspect detained for 15 days at a correctional and rehabilitation centre pending further investigations, a second source said.

“Hneifat will summon the six sisters and other family members of the suspect to further verify his claims and to learn more about the incident,” the second source told The Jordan Times.