Guard allegedly kills man, burns body to hide crime in Amman

AMMAN — The Criminal Court prosecutor on Sunday began questioning a building guard who allegedly killed a man in Amman earlier in the day and set the body ablaze to conceal the murder, official sources said.

The matter was exposed when Civil Defence Department fire engines rushed to a building in the Shafa Badran neighbourhood to extinguish a fire in a building under construction, Police Spokesperson Lt. Col. Amer Sartawi.

While in the process of extinguishing the fire, the police official told The Jordan Times, firefighters discovered a burning body and alerted the authorities.

The body was transported to the National Institute of Forensic Medicine where attending pathologists “revealed that the victim was assaulted and stabbed”, a senior medical source said.

“A special team tasked with investigating this mysterious murder and based on the evidence at the scene concluded that the guard was the man suspect in the murder,” Sartawi said.

The guard was summoned and allegedly confessed to murdering the victim following a heated argument.

In his initial confession to police, the suspect told investigators that “he set the victim’s body ablaze to conceal the murder”.

The Criminal Court prosecutor is expected to summon members from both the victim and the suspect’s family to learn more about the murder, the senior judicial source said.

The suspect was ordered detained at a correctional and rehabilitation centre for 15 days pending further investigations, the senior judicial source said.