Penalty reduced from death after family dropped charge
by Rana Husseini | Mar 19,2012 | JORDAN TIMES
AMMAN — In a relatively rare ruling in an “honour killing” crime, the Criminal Court sentenced the defendant to death and reduced it to life after the family of the victim dropped charges.
The case involves a 29-year-old who murdered his 28-year-old married sister for reasons related to family honour in an Amman suburb in July 2010.
The court established that the murder was not committed in a “fit of fury”, which is the major defence argument that has helped killers of their female relatives to get away with mild punishments over decades.
The court first handed the defendant the death sentence after convicting him of the premeditated murder of his sister at their home on July 9 last year, but immediately decided to reduce the sentence to life because the victim’s family dropped charges against their son, a customary move in such cases.
The court also issued orders for the defendant’s 19-year-old brother, who was standing trial on the same charges, to be detained at a mental institution “because he is mentally disturbed and a serious threat to public safety”.
Court papers said 18 months before the incident, the victim’s husband filed an adultery case against her after she got pregnant while he was out of town and tests proved his allegations were true.
http://jordantimes.com/man-gets-life-sentence-for-murdering-his-married-sister
NOTE BY THE EDITOR: Not ‘pleasant’ News, but we thought of posting it just to show that Courts in Arab countries are not as ‘lenient’ in Honor Killing cases as sometimes thought.