Suspect handed death sentence for rape, murder of young boy

AMMAN — The Criminal Court on Tuesday sentenced a 27-year-old Egyptian construction worker to death after convicting him of sexually assaulting and murdering a child in eastern Amman in October of last year.

The court declared the defendant guilty of sexually assaulting and strangling the eight-year-old victim on October 19, and handed him the maximum punishment.

The defendant sat on the ground crying after hearing his verdict.

The defendant’s lawyer Riad Qaisy said he plans to appeal the verdict at the Court of Cassation.

“This is a harsh punishment and my client was not referred to a government clinic to be mentally evaluated. He suffers from mental problems and was resorting to witchcraft at the time of the incident,” Qaisy told The Jordan Times.

Court transcripts said the victim went to the room of the defendant who worked at a construction site in Sahab.

“The defendant decided to sexually assault the child, so he pinned him to his bed and sodomised him and the boy started screaming,” the court documents said.

The defendant decided to “kill the child by suffocating him with a pillow then dumped his body in a small pool in an attempt to mislead investigators and make it look like the child had drowned,” according to court transcripts.

The boy’s body was found floating in a small pool at a construction site in Sahab three days after the murder occurred, according to court transcripts.

Investigators were doubtful that the child drowned and decided to open an investigation into the incident. A post-mortem conducted at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine confirmed their theory and indicated that there was foul play involved and that the victim was subjected to sexual assault, the court added.

Police questioned all the construction workers and concluded the defendant was the perpetrator, the court maintained.

The tribunal comprised judges Mohammad Baloushi, Hassan Majali and Ali Obeidat.