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Cassation Court upholds juvenile’s murder conviction

By Rana Husseini - Dec 11,2018 - Last updated at Dec 11,2018

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a December 2017 Juvenile Court ruling sentencing a minor to five years at a juvenile detention centre after being convicted of murdering his friend in February of last year.

The Juvenile Court found the minor guilty of stabbing his friend in the neck with a kitchen knife following a heated argument on February 22, and handed him the maximum punishment.

Court papers said that one day before the incident, the defendant was “threatened by some of his classmates because he took a photo of a girl walking with one of his classmates”.

“The defendant took a kitchen knife from his house and placed it in his bag,” according to court documents.

The following day, “the defendant met with the victim and they engaged in a scuffle over an unrelated topic”.

The defendant pulled the knife from his bag during the fight and stabbed the victim in the neck, hitting a vital nerve, the document added. 

The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital where attending physicians tried to stop the heavy bleeding, but the medical personnel were unable to stop the bleeding and the boy died.

The defendant’s lawyer contested the sentence, arguing that he “killed the victim in self-defence”.

“The defendant claimed that the victim pinned him down to the ground, so he stabbed him to set himself free,” court transcripts said.

However, the higher court ruled that the Juvenile Court had followed the proper procedures and the defendant deserved the verdict he received.

“The victim’s actions do not constitute any life-threatening actions to the defendant, because he was just pinning him down to the ground when the latter stabbed him in the neck,” the higher court ruled.

The Court of Cassation judges were Mohammad Ibrahim, Naji Zu’bi, Yassin Abdullat, Majid Azab and Bassem Mubeidin.

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