Court upholds 10-year jail sentence in stabbing death case

AMMAN — The Cassation Court has upheld an October Criminal Court ruling sentencing a 30-year-old man to 10 years in prison after convicting him of murdering an Egyptian in Karak in February 2014.

The Criminal Court declared the defendant guilty of stabbing and killing Eid A. and handed him 20 years.

However, the Criminal Court reduced the sentence to half because the victim’s son dropped the charges.

Court papers said that on February 11, the defendant went with friends to a liquor store and had an argument with the victim over the price of a bottle of alcohol.

The argument became heated and the defendant pulled a knife and stabbed the victim repeatedly, court papers said.

The victim was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died three days later from the stab wounds, the court added.

The defendant had appealed his ruling, arguing that he should be exempted from punishment as stipulated in Article 98 of the Penal Code because he committed the murder in a moment of rage.

But the Cassation Court ruled that the Criminal Court’s verdict of manslaughter in this case falls within the law and that the proceedings were proper and the sentence the defendant received was satisfactory.

The Cassation Court tribunal comprised judges Mahmoud Ababneh, Basel Abu Anzeh, Yassin Abdullat, Daoud Tubeleh and Hussein Sakran.