Home Latest News Jordan Reduces Sentence of ‘Honor Killing’ Convict

Jordan Reduces Sentence of ‘Honor Killing’ Convict

by AFP
Asif Hassan—AFP

File Photo. Asif Hassan—AFP

Pakistani man who killed his wife and her alleged lover has been sentenced to 10 years imprisonment after families dropped all legal claims.

A Jordanian court on Thursday reduced the sentence of a Pakistani man who killed his teenaged wife and her alleged lover last year “to cleanse his honor,” a judicial official said.

“Amman criminal court today initially condemned the 28-year-old Pakistani to death by hanging but immediately reduced the sentence to 10 years in jail after the families of the victims, also from Pakistan, dropped all legal claims against him,” said the official. “He was charged with premeditated murder after he shot dead his 16-year-old wife and her alleged lover, who is also 16, in the Jordan Valley in 2013.”

The man handed himself in to police and “confessed that he suspected the two had an affair and said he wanted to cleanse his honor,” the official added.

Murder is punishable by death in Jordan, but in so-called “honor killings” courts usually commute or reduce sentences if the victim’s family requests leniency.

Between 15 and 20 women are murdered in honor killings in Jordan each year, despite government efforts to curb such crimes. In Pakistan, hundreds of women are murdered by their relatives each year in the defense of “honor.” Last year, 869 women died in such killings there, according to the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.

Related Articles

Leave a Comment