Domestic worker sentenced to death for murdering elderly couple

AMMAN — The Criminal Court on Thursday sentenced a 26-year-old Bangladeshi domestic worker to death after convicting her of murdering an elderly couple in Irbid in March.

The defendant stood motionless as the presiding judge read the verdict, a senior judicial source said.

“The defendant heard the verdict through her translator and had no reaction,” the senior judicial source told The Jordan Times.

The court convicted the woman on two counts of premeditated murder for the bludgeoning to death of an 87-year-old man and his wife, 84, with a small axe while they were sleeping in their home in Irbid on March 24.

Court papers said the defendant arrived to the Kingdom on March 18 to work for the elderly couple.

“The defendant decided that she did not want to work for the couple because they were old and decided to kill them,” according to court papers.

On the day of the murder, the court maintained, the defendant “brought a small axe and struck the victims who were asleep”.

 Fearing she might be exposed, the court maintained, she changed her clothes and cleaned herself.

“She also hit herself with the axe, locked herself in the bathroom and started screaming for help,” according to court transcripts.

A second source told The Jordan Times that the suspect attempted to claim that “an intruder entered the house and murdered the elderly couple and that she was attacked in the process”.  

But police told The Jordan Times shortly after the murder that “investigators never believed her story and that they were able to determine that she was the perpetrator based on evidence at the scene”.  

The verdict will automatically be reviewed by the Cassation Court within the next 30 days.