Man sentenced to death for raping and killing Syrian child

AMMAN — A 27-year-old man was sentenced to death on Tuesday by the Criminal Court after being convicted of sexually assaulting and murdering a Syrian child in an Amman neighbourhood in July.

The defendant stood motionless while hearing the presiding judge read the conviction and verdict, according to a senior judicial source.

“The judge asked the defendant if he made a settlement with the victim’s family and his answer was no.  So the judge sentenced him to death and he had no reaction,” the judicial source told The Jordan Times.

The court found the defendant guilty of murdering a seven-year-old boy on July 6 to conceal his sexual assault after luring him to a deserted building in the Nuzha neighbourhood.

A few days later, a cleaning employee found the victim’s body unclothed and with his throat slit. The body showed traces of sexual assault with stains of paint found on the victim’s hands.

Court papers said that the defendant, a next-door neighbour to the victim worked as a painter on construction sites, saw the victim standing next to his door late at night on the day of the incident.

“The defendant lured the child to a deserted area where he sexually assaulted him after knocking his head against the wall,” the court said.

Fearing that the victim might expose him because he was aware of his identity, the court maintained, “the defendant grabbed a mug, broke it and slit the boy’s throat with it”.

The suspect then “took the child’s clothes and the broken mug and dumped them in a trash dumpster” according to the court documents.

The defendant was later arrested after police became suspicious that “he could have been the one who sexually assaulted and murdered the child”.

He reportedly confessed to the murder and sexual assault and provided details that “only the perpetrator could provide”, a second senior judicial source said.

“The court also relied on DNA evidence and on the defendant’s testimony to the police after he was brought in for questioning for the second time,” the second senior judicial source told The Jordan Times.

The child’s identity was revealed after investigators scanned missing persons’ files and discovered that the child was reported missing by his mother a day earlier.

His family later identified the victim as their missing son.

A postmortem conducted by a team of government pathologists indicated that the “child was brutally sodomised and that he also suffered from brain haemorrhage”.

Criminal Court Prosecutor Issam Haddidi had asked the court to inflict the maximum punishment on the defendant.

The tribunal comprised judges Hayel Amro, Azam Najdawi and Hassan Majali.

Tuesday’s verdict will automatically be reviewed by the Cassation Court within the next 30 days.