Man arrested for ‘faking’ run-over accident

AMMAN — Police on Tuesday said they arrested a man a day earlier after false claims that he was run over by a vehicle in Jabal Amman on Sunday.

“We became suspicious of the man’s story because it was inconsistent and we decided to hold him for further questioning,” a senior traffic official said.

The official added that on Monday, a video clip surfaced on social media “showing the same man hiding behind a vehicle then jumping all of a sudden on the main street to be run over by a passing vehicle”, the senior traffic official added. 

“The video confirmed our theory and, based on it, we arrested the man who claimed this false incident,” the traffic official added.

Initial investigations indicated that the man had “previous disputes with the driver of the vehicle and decided to frame him by staging the run-over accident”, the official source told The Jordan Times.

The official added that the suspect is currently in police custody pending further investigation.

Jordanians took to social media to share the news of the incident by circulating the video clip, denouncing the actions of the man whom they said “fabricated the run over incident”.

Nida Oreiqat wrote: “This man was only aiming to make money the easy way.  Simply a new way of begging.”

Meanwhile, Jihad Taher called on the police to “punish the man who appeared in the video for his actions and the driver should also be compensated for the psychological shock he was subjected to after the man jumped on his vehicle”.

Tareq Khateeb added on his Facebook page: “This man should be imprisoned for at least 10 years so that no one will think of committing such a fake act.”