Man kills sister 'for honour'

2005-02-09 13:19

Amman - The Jordanian authorities have charged a man for the murder of his sister and her fiancé for reasons of "family honour", in the first reported murder of its kind this year, the Jordan Times reported on Wednesday.

The suspect, a 21-year-old construction worker, shot and stabbed his victims at the family home in the southern town of Karak on Tuesday and then turned himself in to police and confessed the crime, officials told the newspaper.

He was charged with two counts of premeditated murder and his 50-year-old father was charged with complicity to murder, they said.

"The suspect told interrogators he killed them because his sister was involved in an intimate relationship with her fiance before they got engaged," one source told the newspaper.

The suspect said "this intimate relationship violated his honour and he decided to kill them," the source added.

The suspect lured the fiancé outside the house pretending he wanted to talk to him privately. He fired at him several rounds and stabbed him with a bayonet, then he returned inside the house and killed his sister in the same way.

An autopsy reports showed that the fiancé was shot six times and stabbed in 26 different parts of his body while the suspect's sister received five bullets and 49 stab wounds, another official source said.

An autopsy of the sister indicated that she had never engaged in any sexual activity, the source added.

According to the Jordan Times, at least 19 women were murdered for family reasons in 2004.

- AFP