A JORDANIAN man slowly strangled his 16-year-old married sister, using wire and the girl's scarf, after she visited a female friend because he had to "cleanse family honour".

After jailing the unidentified 20-year-old man for seven years, Judge Hassan Amayreh said: "It took him 30 minutes to strangle his sister to death with a metal wire and her own scarf."

The girl, who had been married for six months, died in January in the Gaze refugee camp in the town of Jerash, north of the capital.

"I handed down the defendant a 15-year sentence on Sunday, but his family gave up their legal rights and the sentence was reduced," Hassan Amayreh said.

In such cases in Jordan, if family members drop charges against those who carry out the crime, a court usually commutes or reduces sentences.

Amayreh said the brother "has confessed, and claimed that he killed his sister to cleanse his family's honour after her husband complained that she regularly disappeared from home without a reason".

Girls under 18 can legally get married in Jordan.

"She was killed six months after her marriage, and investigations proved that she was visiting her female friend, and not somebody else," the judge said.

In Jordan, between 15 and 20 women are murdered annually in the name of "honour." Last year around 17 such killings were recorded.

Perpetrators get reduced sentences as parliament has refused to reform the penal code to ensure harsher sentences, despite campaigns by local and international human rights activists.