Money suspected as motive behind ‘honour killing’

AMMAN — The Criminal Court prosecutor charged four brothers with complicity in premeditated murder in connection with the stabbing death of their half-sister in Irbid last week, official source said on Thursday.

The widowed victim, 40, and mother of seven children, was rushed to the hospital suffering from multiple stab wounds to the stomach on Friday night.  She died the following day as a result of several stab wounds to the chest and the stomach.

In their initial testimony to Irbid Criminal Court Prosecutor Qahtan Qawaqzeh, the suspects claimed that their half-sister was “wearing tight clothes and interacting with male members outside the family”, the judicial source, who is close to the investigation, said.

“The suspects claimed that they went to the victim’s house to tell her that she was bringing them shame with her actions and stated that she started shouting at them and telling them that it was none of their business,” the judicial source told The Jordan Times.

The men told Qawaqzeh that they dragged the woman to her room because her children were at the house, “beat her up and one of them stabbed her with a switchblade”, according to the judicial source.

The suspects then left the house and headed to a farm where they contacted the authorities and turned themselves in, “claiming to have killed their half-sister for reasons related to family honour”, the judicial source said.

But a second senior source told The Jordan Times that the prosecution office “did not buy their story and they believe that the woman was supporting the suspects financially from some inheritance and she decided to stop, which angered them and they decided to kill her”.

“Investigations are still ongoing and Qawaqzeh is still questioning more family members and the victim’s children,” the second source said.

Qawaqzeh, who is handling the case, decided to level complicity in premeditated murder charges against the four siblings and ordered their detention at a correctional facility pending further investigation, a senior judicial source told The Jordan Times.