Man charged over immolation of two lawyers

AMMAN — The Criminal Court prosecutor on Tuesday charged a merchant with setting a fire that led to the death of a human being in connection with the murder of two lawyers at their office in a commercial building in the capital’s Qweismeh suburb a day earlier, official sources said.

The charred bodies of the two lawyers, aged 42 and 29, were discovered on Monday by Civil Defence Department’s rescue teams who were called to extinguish the fire at around 7pm. Investigators concluded that it was arson.

A few hours following the incident, police arrested the suspect, who reportedly confessed the crime because of a financial dispute.

The suspect was also charged by Criminal Court Prosecutor Issam Haddidi with double homicide. One of the charges could land the defendant the death penalty, a senior judicial source said.

A second suspect, an electrician, was charged with complicity in both charges, the judicial source told The Jordan Times.

Meanwhile, an autopsy conducted by the head of the National Institute of Forensic Medicine Kais Koussous and a team of pathologists indicated that “the victims were alive when they were set ablaze”, a senior medical source said.

“The autopsy revealed that both victims were alive and that a petroleum substance was poured on their bodies which accelerated the fire,” the medical source told The Jordan Times.

In his initial testimony to Haddidi, the suspect claimed that the victim was his attorney and that “he won a JD1,500 case on his behalf and took the cash and did not notify him”, the judicial source said.

The suspect claimed that he called the victim to inquire about the money on several occasions, but the lawyer ignored his calls, according to the judicial source.

On the day of the incident, the judicial source maintained, the suspect asked his friend, the second suspect, to accompany him, bought paint thinner and headed to the lawyers’ office to discuss the matter.

“The suspect claimed that he had no intention of killing anyone and that he only intended to threaten the victim, pouring the flammable substance on the office’s door,” the source said, quoting initial testimonies of the suspect.

The source added that the suspect used a lighter and “fire spread in the room, trapping both lawyers, so he fled in his car and left his friend on the street”.

“An explosion occurred and investigators believe that it could have been caused by a gas cylinder that was probably leaking, which contributed to spreading the fire,” the source said.

The lab is still processing samples taken from the crime scene to identify the exact cause of the fire, the judicial source added.

When the suspect heard in the news that the two men died, the judicial source maintained, “he turned himself in to police”.

The Jordan Bar Association identified the deceased as Mohammad Zawawi and Moayad Rafaiah and mourned their deaths.