AMMAN: A Jordanian man who killed his unmarried sister and her Syrian lover “to defend the family’s honor” has been jailed for six months after the court found mitigating circumstances, a legal source said yesterday.
The accused, a 23-year-old-man whose name was not disclosed, shot dead the couple in March 2008 after they disappeared from the family home in the middle of the night. Together with a cousin, the angry young man later found them “in an indecent situation” at an isolated spot, the court heard.
“He took out his gun, killing his sister on the spot with four bullets and the Syrian shepherd with six shots,” the source said. He then surrendered to the police. The court ruled the accused had acted “in an explosion of rage which caused him to lose the capacity to think.” The judgment was based on Jordan’s penal code, which recognizes mitigating circumstances in case of “honor” killings.
