By Hani Hazaimeh
AMMAN - Tribal and community leaders in the southern town of Maan were engaged in a flurry of activity late Saturday to soothe simmering feelings after the death of a man allegedly beaten by police, eyewitnesses said.
Mohammad Bahri, a Maan resident and president of a local charity, told The Jordan Times over phone that young Maanis were gathering in the streets amid intense efforts by the town elders to calm the situation down.
Meanwhile, Bahri and other eyewitnesses said the Gendarmerie Forces were deployed to the area after Mohammad Kreishan, 44, succumbed yesterday to a head injury he received Thursday, allegedly at the hands of a police officer who was among a task force sent to arrest a friend of Kreishan, according to a security source.
The source said that members of the Maan police force were on a mission to arrest a suspect in a bad cheque case. The unnamed wanted man took refuge at the house of Kreishan, who tried to prevent the police officers from storming his house to arrest the fugitive.
The source added that a clash erupted between Kreishan, supported by his relatives in the neighbourhood, and members of the police force.
The security source said eyewitnesses were able to identify the suspect at the governor’s office. The suspect, he said, is a lieutenant who is under interrogation.
Kreishan had been evacuated to the army-run Hussein Medical Centre in Amman for treatment for the fatal injury, said to have been caused by a baton.
Yesterday evening, the Gendarmerie Forces were “so far keeping a distance from the angry youths”, said Bahri, who expected that the reconciliation efforts would pay off, especially since police immediately opened an investigation into the incident and arrested the suspect.
There were no reports of violence by the time this story went to print.
Maan has a history of clashes with authorities, starting in 1989, when violent protests broke out after a national economic crisis caused a rise in commodity and fuel prices.
Last week, six Gendarmerie members were hospitalised in a riot that followed the death of a resident in Hai Al Tafaileh in east Amman. In a similar episode, the deceased was allegedly beaten by police before he went into a coma and died.
