Teenager receives 15-year jail term for killing four family members

May 8, 2008, 8:33 GMT

Amman - A Jordanian criminal court has sentenced a 19-year- old girl to 15 years in prison after convicting her of poisoning and killing four of her family members in the northern city of Irbid in February, the Jordan Times reported Thursday.

The tribunal first handed the defendant, whose identity was withheld, the death penalty for the premeditated murder of her parents and two of her brothers, but immediately reduced the sentence to 15 years in jail because her surviving family members and uncles dropped charges against her.

The court said the defendant, a second-year student at the Irbid College for Girls, was accused by her parents and siblings of stealing 30 dinars (45 dollars) from one of her brothers almost a week before the incident.

'Her family searched her room, then her brother dragged her by the hair and hit her on her head and legs,' the court said.

The defendant said she decided to take revenge because her family was treating her as 'a thief,' so she mixed juice with a deadly poison her father had brought home to kill stray dogs and offered it to her parents and two brothers.

In her initial confession to police, the defendant claimed she had no intention of killing her family, but 'just wanted to harm them because they considered her a thief.'

But in its ruling, the tribunal said that the defendant 'knew she was using a deadly substance that would eventually lead to her family's death.'

The defendant's lawyer said that he planned to appeal the verdict at a higher court within 30 days.