MIDDLE EAST Writer Charged With Insulting Islam Is Killed as Extremism Boils Over in Jordan By RANA F. SWEIS and PETER BAKER SEPT. 25 , 201 6  This video is not currently supported on your browser. The death of the writer Nahed Hattar, who was gunned down on Sunday outside a court where he faced a charge of insulting Islam, "is a huge loss" to Jordan, his cousin says. By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS on September 25 , 201 6. Photo by Jamal Nasrallah/European Pressphoto Agency . Watch in Times Video » Embed AMMAN, Jordan — Some of the most extreme elements in Jordan made clear in recent weeks that Nahed Hattar should pay for a provocative cartoon he posted online depicting a bearded man in bed with two women ordering God to bring him cashews and wine. So when Mr. Hattar, 56, a prominent writer from a Christian family, showed up at a court on Sunday to face criminal charges of insulting Islam, at least one man with a gun decided a trial was not enough. As three bullets ripped through the writer in front of the courthouse, Jordan’s simmering tensions boiled over. The brazen daylight killing of Mr. Hattar in front of his horrified family was not only the latest example of violence tied to cartoon renderings of Muslim figures, it was also the sort of manifestation of extremism that Jordan’s government has struggled to contain in a nation that finds itself under pressure from multiple directions. While presenting itself as a stable outlier in a tumultuous region, Jordan converted by Web2PDFConvert.com