Husband stabs wife, two daughters, commits suicide

AMMAN — A woman was admitted to an Amman hospital on Monday along with her two daughters after they were allegedly stabbed by her husband, who jumped from the balcony of his residence after the alleged assault, official sources have said.

The man, who died as a result of the fall, reportedly attacked his family with a knife over a domestic dispute in Ashrafieh Neighbourhood on Monday morning, Police Spokesperson Lt. Col. Amer Sartawi said.

 “The victims were rushed to Al Bashir Hospital and were admitted to surgery,” Sartawi told The Jordan Times.

Hospital director Mahmoud Zureigat said that all three victims underwent surgeries and are “listed in stable condition in the intensive care unit”.

“The 45-year-old woman was stabbed the most and she underwent several difficult surgeries because the wounds were mostly in her stomach,” Zureigat told The Jordan Times.

The hospital director added that the 13- and 11-year-old girls were also stabbed mostly in the stomach, but their injuries were “not as life-threatening as their mother’s”.

Zureigat said that the three are recovering from the surgeries and investigators have not yet been able to question them to learn more about the incident.

“Quick medical intervention and the availability of the specialised surgeons played a role in saving the lives of the three victims,” Zureigat added.

Meanwhile, Director of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine (NIFM) at Al Bashir Hospital Adnan Abbas said an autopsy will be performed on the husband on Tuesday.

“We will perform an autopsy on the victim within the next 24 hours, and take the necessary samples and send it to the criminal lab for further analysis,” Abbas told The Jordan Times.

Sartawi said that police are investigating the incident and are currently questioning the relatives of the victims and their neighbours.

This is the second incident involving a domestic assault by a husband in less than 24 hours in the Kingdom.

On Sunday, a man was charged with manslaughter in connection with an alleged assault on his wife a day earlier in Russeifa.

The victim was taken to hospital after reportedly being beaten by her husband, but died the following day, Sartawi had said after the alleged incident.

“The victim informed investigators before dying that her husband had beaten her, and when we arrested him, he confessed to the incident,” Sartawi said.

Sisterhood is Global Institute (SIGI) issued a report on Sunday stating that 20 women have been killed in Jordan since the beginning of the year in gender-related violence incidents.

The institute pointed out that this year’s figures are three times higher than last year’s, with seven cases reported in the Kingdom during the same period of 2018.

SIGI called on the government to “increase prison punishments for perpetrators of crimes that target women and children”.

The organisation also called on the government to provide free counselling and guidance programmes for Jordanian families to raise their awareness about gender-based violence and the legal and social services that are available for anyone in need.