Man jailed for killing wife with headscarf, ordered to pay blood money

Aya Al Deeb, Staff Reporter

The Federal Supreme Court (FSC) partially overturned a ruling by the Court of Appeal in which a man was sentenced to 5 years in jail and obligated to pay Dhs100,000 in blood money on charges of killing his wife. 

The FSC confirmed the conditions for premeditated murder were available in the case and that the medical committee’s report confirmed that the defendant was fully responsible for his actions. While no death sentence was issued because the defendant and the victim had a daughter, the FSC ruled that the blood money be Dhs200,000 instead of Dhs100,000.

Investigations into the case showed that there were disputes between the husband and wife and that the wife called her husband and told him she wanted to take her daughter. The husband asked his wife to come home to reach an understanding and solve their disputes.

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The wife came home, sat with her husband but talked with him nervously. As the husband refused to give her daughter to her and to resort to the courts of law, the wife threw her jewellery box in her husband’s face and insulted him.

She then went to the bedroom and took her clothes, jewellery and passport and before she went out of the room, she pulled her daughter from her hand so forcefully that the girl screamed.

The defendant jumped on his wife, grabbed her from her neck with his hands and pressed her neck with his right hand while trying to calm his daughter down. He kept pressing his wife’s neck for 5-10 minutes until he saw blood coming from her nose and then moved away.

But he later noticed that she was still alive and consequently he brought a ghutra (headscarf) , tied it around her neck and tightened the tie before going to his mother’s room to tell her he had killed his wife and hand her daughter over to her.

Later, the husband then called the Civil Defence and the police and told them that he had killed his wife.  He then went directly to the police station where he surrendered. Asked why he returned to his wife and tightened his ghutra around her neck, the defendant said that he wanted her dead and felt a great relief from her death.

According to the Public Prosecution’s investigations, the couple lived in a separate room of a one-storey low-cost house and the wife’s body was found lying on the floor with her neck being tied with a ghutra.

The Public Prosecution referred the defendant to the courts of law on charges of premeditatedly killing his wife. The Court of First Instance unanimously sentenced him to life in prison and obligated him to pay Dhs200,000 in blood money to be paid to her inheritors. It also obligated the defendant to pay the lawyer’s fees and ordered the civil lawsuit to be referred to the competent court.

The defendant and the Public Prosecution, however, appealed and the Court of Appeal commuted the life in prison to 15 years in jail. The defendant and the Public Prosecution appealed again and the FSC ruled that  the verdict be reversed.

The Court of Appeal sentenced him again to 5 years in jail and obligated him to pay Dhs100,000 in blood money.

The defendant appealed again, pleading that the verdict convicted him of premeditated murder without clarifying the elements of the crime, particularly the criminal intent. He added that the verdict turned away from his defence that he suffered from a personality disorder that should absolve him of responsibility or should be considered a mitigating excuse.

The court, however, affirmed that all illnesses and psychological conditions, under which a person is aware of what is around him, may not absolve him of responsibility.