Police arrest 14 after riots on Amman-Aqaba highway

AMMAN — Police on Monday said 14 people were arrested a day earlier in connection with riots on the Amman-Aqaba highway that left one person dead and closed the road for over five hours over the weekend.

“We have arrested 14 individuals and are questioning them in connection with the death and riots near the Rashadiyeh area,” Public Security Department Spokesperson Lt. Col. Amer Sartawi said.

A 35-year-old man had been rushed to Maan Public Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival because of a gunshot wound to the head, according to Sartawi.

Motorists were stranded for almost five hours on Friday after residents of Rashadiyeh set tyres on fire and blocked the street to protest the death of a man following a police pursuit late Friday night.

When police attempted to disperse the protesters to open the international highway, Sartawi told The Jordan Times, “rioters attacked the force with rocks and gunshots were heard”.

Police announced on Saturday that “a man, suspected of killing an Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) agent in an ambush last month, was killed following a pursuit that included heavy exchange of gunfire”.

Corporal Mohammad Atta Salaymeh of AND died of wounds he sustained in a shoot-out with suspected drug dealers while on duty in an area in Maan’s Rashadiyeh area, some 220km south of Amman, on September 19.