Three sentenced to death for killing officers

AMMAN — The State Security Court (SSC) on Sunday sentenced three men to the death penalty for murdering two police officers and a gendarme lieutenant in two separate cases in Irbid and Maan. 

The shooting in Irbid took place earlier in December 2015, involving five men who shot and killed Captain Jamal Darawsheh and Corporal Usama Jarawreh near the Samma intersection to the west of Irbid while in their patrol vehicle.

One of the defendants was the brother of a man from the village who was killed in a police shootout in October last year, when police were trying to arrest him for alleged vandalism of an Islamic cemetery. 

The second defendant was given life in prison for orchestrating the attack and transporting the weapon, while the third defendant received 15 years in prison for providing the weapon while knowing it was going to be used against police officers, a judicial source told The Jordan Times. 

Meanwhile in the Maan case, the SSC sentenced two men to death and a third suspect to life in prison, for murdering Second Lieutenant Nart Nafesh in Maan in August 2014.

The SSC charge sheet said four of the five defendants in the case sought to avenge the death of a relative during the unrest in the governorate and decided to target any police officer in the city. 

In the same case, the court sentenced a third suspect to life in prison, declared a fourth not guilty for lack of evidence and referred a minor to a juvenile court, a judicial source told The Jordan Times.