Court upholds life sentence in police officer's murder

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a November Criminal Court ruling sentencing a 25-year-old man to life in prison after convicting him of murdering a police officer who was trying to arrest him in Amman in December 2017.

The court declared the defendant, who was wanted on several charges of theft, guilty of stabbing Corporal Tymour Tareq in the Zohour neighbourhood on December 1, and handed him the maximum punishment.

Court documents said the defendant had previously been in detention on several criminal charges and “managed to escape while being taken to a hospital for treatment”.

On the day of the incident, court transcripts maintained, the victim and other police officers spotted the defendant and approached him to arrest him.

“The defendant drew a knife he had on him and stabbed the victim once in the belly and fled,” according to the court document.

The victim fell and screamed that he was stabbed so he was rushed to a nearby hospital where he died a few weeks later “from a fatal stab wound to the kidney”, court transcripts said.

The higher court ruled that the Criminal Court followed the proper procedures when sentencing the defendant, and that he deserved the verdict he received. 

The Court of Cassation judges were Mohammad Ibrahim, Naji Zu’bi, Hammad Ghzawi, Yassin Abdullat and Majed Azab.