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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - The Criminal Court on Sunday upheld a death sentence that was issued against a 50-year-old father in 2015 for raping his minor daughter and transmitting HIV/AIDS to her.

The defendant stood motionless upon hearing the verdict read out by presiding Judge Fawzi Nahar, according to a senior judicial source.

“The Court of Cassation has overturned the 2015 death sentence verdict because the Criminal Court did not hear the testimony of two witnesses who were informed by the victim of the rape incidents,” the judicial source told The Jordan Times.

The Criminal Court adhered to the higher court’s demands and summoned the two witnesses to testify for the case, according to the judicial source.

“The two witnesses did not add any substantial information to the case and the Criminal Court stuck to its original verdict sentencing the father to death,” the judicial source added.

Court transcripts said the father “raped his daughter when she was 12-years-old and repeated his actions on several occasions”, including sexual molestations.
“The defendant began assaulting his daughter sexually in 2011, and in 2014 the mother saw her daughter with her husband in a suspicious position and the father promised not to repeat his actions,” the court said in its ruling.

However, the court maintained, “the father began assaulting his daughter again, and she ran away from home and filed a complaint against him at the Family Protection Department affiliated with the Public Security Department, and he was arrested.”

The defendant denied sexually assaulting his daughter in court, but the tribunal depended on the victim’s testimony and “the fact that she contracted the disease recently”.

“The court heard experts’ testimony that the disease was not hereditary and that it was contracted to her through sexual intercourse.”

The defendant’s wife also carries the disease which she caught from her husband, according to the judicial source.

Criminal Court Prosecutor Sultan Shakhanbeh had asked the court to inflict the maximum punishment on the defendant.

The tribunal also comprised of Judges Loui Obeidat and Abdul Raheem Al Hasban.

The Cassation Court will review the verdict for a second time within the next 30 days.