By Hani Hazaimeh

AMMAN - A number of young people in the southern city of Maan late Saturday attacked and burned a police vehicle and a security booth after opening fire on the policemen manning the station.

The attacks were triggered by the death of a man who had been in coma since Thursday after allegedly being attacked by a police officer during a clash between police and residents who tried to prevent the arrest of a suspect.

Eyewitnesses told The Jordan Times over phone that the police fled the booth without firing back at the angry attackers.

Riots were witnessed in other parts of the city as some residents protesting the death of Fakhri Kreishan, 44, who died at Al Hussein Medical Centre in Amman, blocked the Desert Highway leading to Aqaba, the residents said. Gunshots were heard in various parts of the city.

A security source confirmed the eyewitnesses’ account, saying that the Gendarmerie Forces enhanced their presence in the southern town, 220km from Amman, after the violent developments.

The violence erupted although the tribe of the suspect, a lieutenant who allegedly beat Kresihan with a baton on the head Thursday, were granted atwa, or a truce, by the Kreishan family for three days. Atwa, according to tribal traditions, is a renewable promise of refraining from violence till a final reconciliation.

Tribal and community leaders in the town were earlier engaged in a flurry of activity to soothe simmering feelings after Kreishan was proclaimed dead yesterday afternoon.

Mohammad Bahri, a Maan resident and president of a local charity, told The Jordan Times over phone that young Maanis had gathering in the streets amid intense efforts by the town elders to calm down the situation. The officer accused of causing death to Kreishan was among a taskforce sent to arrest one of his friends, according to the 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 was under interrogation.

Kreishan had been evacuated to the army-run Hussein Medical Centre in Amman for treatment for the fatal injury.

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.