Man handed 24-year sentence for burning 13-year-old daughter to death

AMMAN — The Cassation Court has upheld a June 2019 Criminal Court decision sentencing a 46-year-old guard to 24 years in prison after convicting him of torching and murdering his teenage daughter for reasons related to so-called family honour in December 2015. 

On the day of the incident, court documents said, the victim “left the house to go and see a friend without informing the defendant”.

When she returned home, court transcripts added, “the defendant reportedly cursed her, then locked the door and beat her up with a wooden stick and set her ablaze”.

“The victim’s siblings attempted to enter the room to rescue their sister, but could not because the defendant had locked the door and refused to let them inside,” court papers said.

The defendant had claimed in front of investigators that “he had no intention of murdering his daughter, but was disciplining her because she had left the house without his permission, and she fell on a kerosene heater, so her body caught fire”.

The defendant also claimed that he wrapped her in a blanket in an attempt to extinguish the fire and that “his brothers who lived in the same building rushed to help him”.

However, the victim told police and attending physicians at the hospital before her condition deteriorated that “her father had set her on fire”.

The Criminal Court handed the defendant a 20-year prison term after convicting him of beating and setting his 13-year-old daughter on fire at their home in Jabal Qusour on December 12, 2015. The victim died a week later as a result of burns covering 80 per cent of her body.

The Criminal Court reduced the sentence by half in February because the victim’s mother and brother had dropped charges against the defendant. However, the sentence was overturned a few months later by the Court of Cassation, which asked the Criminal Court to give the defendant the full sentence he had originally received.

"What the defendant committed against his daughter is ugly and heinous, and he should not benefit from a reduction in penalty even if the victim's family members dropped charges against him," the higher court ruled.

The Cassation Court also instructed the Criminal Court to investigate whether the victim had other family members who also wished to drop charges against the defendant. After concluding that some immediate family members refused to drop charges against the defendant, the Criminal Court revised its ruling and sentenced the man to 24 years in prison. 

Court papers said the defendant had been tough on the victim, “restricting her movements, depriving her from seeking education and disciplining her through different harmful methods”.

 The Criminal Court's attorney general asked the higher court to uphold the ruling, saying that it was satisfactory and that the defendant deserved the punishment he received.

The Cassation Court tribunal comprised judges Mohammad Ibrahim, Saeed Mugheid, Bassem Mubeidin, Naji Zu’bi and Majid Azab.