Man charged with premeditated murder of 2 toddler daughters

AMMAN — Two men on Tuesday were each charged with premeditated murder in connection with two separate domestic violence incidents that resulted in the deaths of a divorced woman and two female children in Amman and the Southern Badia, according to official sources.

In one incident, the Criminal Court prosecutor charged a 38-year-old man with one count of premeditated murder in connection with the stabbing death of his divorced wife while at the Sharia Court in Rusiefeh on Monday.

The suspect was attending a custody hearing with his divorced wife when he allegedly “drew a pair of scissors from his pocket and stabbed her once in the heart,” a senior judicial source told The Jordan Times.

The 28-year-old victim was rushed to a nearby hospital but attending physicians were unable to save her because the stab was fatal, the senior judicial source said.

“Our investigations indicated that the murder was plotted by the suspect who brought the scissors with him to the court to murder his wife because they had court hearings over child custody matters,” the judicial source said.

Also Tuesday, the Criminal Court prosecutor charged a man with the premeditated murder of his two daughters in Southern Badia on Saturday, the senior judicial source said.

The suspect, who is in his 40s, allegedly stabbed his two daughters, aged two and three, to death while at his home on March 6 and then fled the scene. He was arrested by police on Monday.

A senior judicial source had told The Jordan Times that the suspect was “a repeat criminal offender who was known to have been involved in vehicle thefts and was a known drug dealer”.

 In his initial testimony to the Criminal Court prosecutor, the suspect claimed that he “slit the throats of his two daughters to revenge his wife over marital problems”.

Initial investigations indicated that the suspect’s wife went back to her family’s home with her six children following a domestic dispute, official sources said shortly after the incident occurred.

On Saturday, the judicial source maintained, the suspect headed to his in-laws’ house and “demanded to take his children home to spend time with them and they agreed”.

“Our initial investigations indicate that he went back home, grabbed a knife and slit the throats of two of his six children then rushed quickly out of the house,” according to the senior judicial source.

The four other children, who “were present during the murder hid in different parts of the house”, according to the senior judicial source.

When they went to check out the matter, the source stated, they “saw the two girls with heavy injuries to their bodies”.

“The neighbours rushed the two girls to a nearby hospital but they were already dead and physicians were unable to help them,” the senior judicial source maintained. 

Both suspects were ordered detained for 15 days at correctional and rehabilitation centres pending further investigations into the two incidents.