…but in a much different way…
Father serves 3 months for son’s murder
By Rana Husseini
AMMAN  A 52-year-old man walked free from the Criminal Court this week after receiving a reduced sentence for murdering his son in August 2005.
Z. K. was first sentenced to six months for shooting and killing his son at his house following a heated argument.
The court, stuff however, remedy decided to immediately commute the sentence to half after the victim’s family dropped all charges.
Court transcripts said the defendant’s son had travelled to Iraq to study but failed because of his bad behaviour and “dishonourable relationships with women there.â€Â
The victim returned to Jordan and enrolled in a private university but was regularly in trouble, the court said.“His father would always interfere to solve his son’s problems and when he finally graduated he worked at a company but wasted his salary at nightclubs… and the defendant was paying his debts,†court transcripts said.
The court also heard that the victim used to return home drunk after midnight and curse his father and God.
On the morning of the incident, the defendant woke up around 5:00am and fetched his gun. He then went to his son’s room to check his wallet to see if he had spent his salary again, the court said, adding the victim woke up and started arguing with his father.
“The victim cursed the defendant and attempted to hit him. The latter became enraged and could no longer control his temper and fired two rounds striking his son in the head,†the court said.
The defendant then drove to the nearest police station and turned himself and the weapon in.
The Criminal Court decided to amend the premeditated murder charges originally pressed against the defendant to a misdemeanour as stipulated in Article 98 “because the defendant committed his crime in a fit of fury.â€Â
“The victim’s actions and the curses he uttered violate religious and cultural codes stipulating that a son should respect his father. The actions of the victim insulted the defendant and caused him to lose control of his feelings and thinking,†the court ruled.
The March 21 verdict is subject to appeal at a higher court within the next 30 days.
Friday-Saturday, March 23-24, 2007
Ah, you gotta love it when violating religious and cultural codes is enough to garner a death sentence. It’s against the law to not respect your father? And the punishment is…death?
speechless.
Being insulted can cause a man to lose control and kill the son of his own body? Why not just stop bailing the son out and let him pay the consequences of his own choices…which evidently didn’t happen enough when the boy was young. But maybe the father didn’t know enough about self-control to teach him.
This is TOO sad, on many fronts
I think that it is all about power and control not religion and morals as the story states.The excuse of immorality and disrespect for the father is just a front being put on to show that in our society parents as well as religion respect must remain something sacrosanct.The father have the option of kicking him out of the house and everything would have ended right then and there.I would have felt much better if the father claimed that he killed his son in self defense.
Honor killing victims can be also guys… 🙁 .
I think it’s sometime forgotten.
The feminists lost, the feminists lost!
Honor crimes are not sexist, the law is not sexist!
Yes for article 98!
And I hereby ask the Jordanian parliament and government to approve selling guns at local stores and Carrefour, man some cabbies drive me nuts.
Yesterday the University road was put on a hold when a Jordanian girl hugged a guy saying goodbye (You see, if people were carrying guns, they would have spared her father and his dad all the fuss)
I don’t know, it’s time to demolish all public schools, I mean private schools are doing some great job, it’s time.
I heart honor!
The more I think about this, the more absurd it seems. This is probably a case of poor child rearing on the part of the parent. Therefore the father kills the son, who is most likely a product of his upbringing, rather than punishing himself for being a worthless parent.
Thanks Dave, your second comment is much more poignant than the first one.
Here is something that is somewhat overlooked, article 98 can strike anyone anytime!!
“Article 98 stipulates that a reduced sentence is applied to a person who kills another person in a “fit of fury”.”
The person could be anyone, the cause for the fit of fury could be anything as long as you prove it angered you enough!! It’s any angry murderer’s excuse that’s the reason article 98 is used in honor killings cases when article 340 doesn’t hold up because it has actual requirements.
I really don’t know what to say… an article in a country’s constitution.. people, this is some serious sh*t!!! an article that favors respect of your own father over your life.. this is outrageous!!
Firas, femminists have unluckly lost if in the Jordanian law there are still these articles, so they must go on to fight.
I think these laws are also sexist…but not always, as many times we think.