Two teenagers reportedly killed by their elder brothers

By Rana Husseini

AMMAN - The Zarqa criminal prosecutor has referred a 17-year-old youth, who reportedly confessed to murdering his younger sister over the weekend, to a juvenile court for further questioning, official sources said.

The suspect, who was not identified by officials because of his age, confessed to stamping on his 13-year-old sibling’s head several times with his boots, then stabbing her 30 times at their family home on January 21, to defend his family’s honour, a senior official source told The Jordan Times.

The suspect then headed to the nearest police station and handed officers on duty a dagger which he claimed he “used to stab and kill his sister”, according to the source.

In his initial testimony, the suspect told investigators that he killed his sister after learning from his friends that a man gave her a piece of paper with his phone number written on it, the source said.

“The victim informed her mother about the paper and when the suspect came home he grabbed a knife and stabbed his sister, who denied any wrongdoing,” the source said.

The victim was rushed to hospital with multiple stab wounds to her chest, stomach, liver and back, but she was declared dead on arrival, according to the official source.

A postmortem conducted by government pathologists Ibrahim Obeidat and Muwaffaq Mutee indicated that the victim was not sexually active.

Meanwhile, Criminal Prosecutor Ihsan Salamat has charged a 73-year-old man with the manslaughter of his younger divorced sister in the second reported so-called honour crime since the beginning of the year, a second source told The Jordan Times.

The 19-year-old victim received three bullets to her head and chest, allegedly by the defendant, who claimed family honour as the motive when he turned himself in to the police shortly after the incident.

The murder occurred at the suspect’s home on Thursday night, the source told The Jordan Times.

The suspect claimed that he killed his sister due to “accusations by her ex-husband that she had a bad reputation and because she went missing from her home on several occasions”.

He told investigators that he shot his sister after seeing her attempting to leave the house without his knowledge, and also claimed that he had carried a gun for the past 30 years, according to the source.

“These are all claims by the suspect, but we have expanded our investigations and are currently questioning the victim’s family members,” the official source said.

Pathologists Azzam Haddad and Hussein Abul Samen issued a report indicating the victim was shot at close range, the source said, adding that they sent blood and tissue samples to the criminal lab for further analyses.

A senior judicial source confirmed to The Jordan Times on Saturday that 18 people were killed in so-called honour crimes last year in the Kingdom.

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