Suspect in bludgeoning death of two children referred to psychiatric evaluation

AMMAN — The Criminal Court prosecutor on Monday referred a 35-year-old man to the National Institute of Psychiatric Medicine for evaluation, one day after the bludgeoning death of two children in Zarqa, official sources said.

Criminal Court Prosecutor Tayseer Bani Khalid also charged the suspect with two counts of manslaughter, a senior judicial source said.

The two victims, aged three and two, were allegedly struck on the head by the suspect, who is their neighbour, with an iron bar near their home in the Halabat area on Sunday, a police official told The Jordan Times on Sunday.

The suspect then fled the area but was later apprehended by the authorities, the official added.

The two victims were rushed to a hospital where the three-year-old boy was declared dead on arrival, while his two-year-old sister died shortly afterwards, the police source added.

A postmortem conducted by a team of pathologists in Zarqa headed by Ibrahim Obeidat indicated that the children died of multiple blows to their head caused by a blunt object, a senior medical source said.

“All the injuries were focused on the heads of the two children,” the senior medical source told The Jordan Times.

In his initial testimony to Bani Khalid, the suspect claimed that “the victims were making fun of him, so he grabbed an iron bar and followed them to their house, struck them with the iron bar and fled”.

“The suspect did not appear to be ‘normal’ and that is why he was referred to a government institute for psychiatric evaluation,” according to the judicial source.

Bani Khalid will continue with his investigations by questioning the victims’ family and other witnesses in the area, the judicial source said.