Suspect identified in fatal campus shooting, search still ongoing — police

AMMAN — Police on Saturday said they have identified a suspect in connection with the reported shooting death of a female university female student on Thursday, senior official sources said.

The victim, who was identified by the Applied Science Private University as Iman Ersheid, 22, was gunned down by an assailant who was wearing a cap.

“We have identified a possible suspect and a special task team is hunting him down,” Police Spokesperson Lt. Col. Amer Sartawi told The Jordan Times.

The police official added that the special team “raided the victim’s home and other places where he was believed to be but could not find him”.

“The special team concluded that the suspect planned the murder carefully and used all means to conceal his identity,” Sartawi added.

Sartawi added that the search is ongoing for the suspect.

Meanwhile, the Criminal Court’s General Attorney Ihasan Salamat late Thursday night issued a gag order banning the press from reporting about the murder incident.

“We urge the press and the public to refrain from publishing any information that is not released through official means so that it would not affect the course of the investigations,” Sartawi stressed.

The police official added that any information regarding this incident “will be published through the official channel and in coordination with the judicial entities that are in charge of the investigations”. 

Ersheid, a nursing major, was reportedly shot over five times by the man as she exited an exam hall, according to multiple media outlets.

The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital where she succumbed to her wounds, according to Sartawi.

The university published a post on its Facebook page shortly after the victim was shot and killed, offering condolences to the victim’s family.

“The university pledges to prosecute everyone who caused this painful incident until this individual is prosecuted for his heinous crime,” the university post stated.

The university’s dean Zakaria Mubasher told a local media outlet on Thursday that the “suspected killer is not a university student”.

“The security personnel at the university first thought the gunshots were firecrackers but later realised that a student was shot,” Mubasher told the media outlet.

When the security attempted to stop the suspect, he maintained, “he fired several rounds in the air so that he could escape, which he did”.

“The surveillance cameras that are spread on campus showed that the suspect ran on foot to nearby buildings where he disappeared and was nowhere to be found,” according to the university’s dean.