Two runaway teenagers short on cash stabbed a British tourist last week in the Jordanian capital to rob him, a police report said Sunday.
The 15- and 16-year-old boys had left their family home in the working class Hay Nazzal district of Amman's old city to live on their own in a rented room but were short on cash and looking for ways to raise money, the report said.
On October 31 the boys, armed with a knife, left their room in search for a shop or someone to rob and fell upon the British tourist John Page, 29, in western Amman's Jabal Amman district.
"They saw the young man walking around alone, dressed in shorts with his pockets bulging, so they attacked him from behind and asked him to empty his pockets," the report said.
"They were surprised to see that he could not speak Arabic and when he screamed (for help) they stabbed him and fled," the report added.
The teenagers were arrested the following day and admitted their responsibility for the crime, the report said.
Page was wounded in the arm and in the abdomen but his condition was not immediately believed to be life-threatening. He was still in the hospital Sunday.
The attack came amid a wave of unrest sweeping the neighboring Palestinian territories and coincided with two false bomb alerts received by the British embassy in Amman, an informed source said -- AMMAN (AFP)
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