Suspect in killing of female Jordanian student dies in hospital from gunshot wounds

Police say man who killed Iman Rashid, 21, shot himself as security forces closed in

Iman Rashid, 21, was shot dead at a campus in Amman, the capital of Jordan. Reuters

Jordanian police said a man suspected of shooting dead a female student at a university in Amman died in hospital on Monday after shooting himself, contradicting an earlier statement that he had died as police surrounded him in a nearby area.

The General Security Directorate said "the killer", Oday Hassan, in his late 30s, "died from his wounds after shooting himself".

Amer Al Sartawi, spokesman for the General Security Directorate said Hassan shot himself in the head as police closed in on him in the area of Blama, 50 kilometres north-east of Amman, state TV reported.

"He was transferred to intensive care unconscious and not showing vital signs," Mr Al Sartawi said.

The student, Iman Rashid, 21, was shot dead at the Applied Science Private University on Thursday in a killing that shook Jordan's conservative society.

Hassan was "brain-dead", state TV reported. It published a photo purportedly of Hassan as he was being surrounded by police and holding a gun to his right cheek.

Other Jordanian media said he was taken to a government hospital in Zarqa, Jordan's second city, near Amman.

Officials had earlier said "the suspect died after shooting himself as security personnel surrounded him".

Rashid's killer entered through the main gate of the university brandishing a weapon and, after shooting her, made his way out while firing into the air, state media reported.

Jordanian authorities had previously said the killer had been identified and they were searching for him. Reporting on the case was banned until police could release more information.

“His home and other sites were raided but he was not found,” state TV quoted a security spokesman as saying on Friday. “The search continues.”

The motive for the killing was not clear.

Jordanian society is underpinned by delicate tribal balances and a legal system influenced by Bedouin concepts of justice.

Many criminal cases are resolved through payment of compensation, known as diyyah, after a tribal reconciliation deal called atwa.

The student's father, Mufid Rashid, said he would not accept any deal with the family of whoever killed his daughter.

“I demand his execution,” Mr Rashid told Al Arabiya television before the reporting ban came into effect.

“I will not give atwa or anything. I will take retribution from him equivalent to the crime.”

Crime in Jordan has been mounting in the past decade amid a declining economy.

The campus killing in Amman came only days after a young woman was fatally stabbed outside her university in the Egyptian city of Mansoura.

The suspect, a student, was arrested soon after the killing last Monday and went on trial on Sunday. Police said he had confessed.