Two men sentenced to 20, 13 years for murder

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a March Criminal Court ruling, sentencing two men to prison terms of 20 and 13 years after convicting them of murdering a man in Madaba in July 2019. 

The court declared the defendants guilty of stabbing the 31-year-old victim to death in front of a police station on July 12. 

One of the defendants received a 20-year prison term, while the second received 13-years and four months imprisonment term. 

Court papers said the defendants wanted to take revenge on the victim because they believed him to be complicit in the murder of a relative. 

On the day of the murder, the court maintained, the defendants saw the victim driving a water tanker, and forced him to pull over.

“The victim stopped briefly, managed to escape and went to his father’s home,” said the court papers. 

The victim’s father advised his son to “head to the police station to file a complaint and he agreed,” the court transcript stated.

The defendants followed the victim and “attacked him with wooden sticks,” the court papers said. 

“The defendants then proceeded to stab him to death before he was able to enter the police station,” the court papers added.

The postmortem report indicated that the victim sustained four stab wounds to different parts of his body, and died as a result of internal bleeding, the court documents said. 

The defendant contested the Criminal Court’s ruling charging that “the prosecution failed to provide any solid evidence”.

However, the higher court ruled that the Criminal Court followed the proper procedure when sentencing and the defendant deserves the verdict he received.  

The Court of Cassation judges were Mohammad Ibrahim, Yassin Abdullat, Nayef Samarat, Qassem Dughmi and Hammad Ghzawi.