A man sentenced to seven years in jail for killing a four-month-old baby, who was being taken care of by his babysitter girlfriend, has lost his appeal at the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court.
The 22-year-old was initially accused of murdering the child, named Dahoom, but in July, the High Criminal Court ruled that the killing was not premeditated, and altered the charge to manslaughter.
The Saudi national was jailed, having admitted to repeatedly punching the baby boy in the head while being drunk, because he could not stand the sound of his cries.
The court, however, changed the charge from murder to ‘beating leading to death’ after finding that the man ‘did not intend to kill’.
The Public Prosecution had earlier asked judges to sentence the suspect to death, stating that it has presented ‘copious, conclusive evidence’ of his guilt, including DNA recovered from the injury.
A report by a medical examiner also said the death was ‘intentional’ and ‘not an accident’.
“The bludgeoning injuries sustained by the dead child appear to have been inflicted with the purpose of causing harm, and it is highly unlikely that they occurred accidentally,” the report read.
Standing trial alongside the killer were his Thai girlfriend and the baby’s Thai mother, who were both found guilty of child neglect and prostitution and were sentenced to three years in jail each.
They also lost their appeals, with the court upholding the verdicts against them.
According to the Thai woman who runs an informal nursery in her Juffair apartment, the Saudi man has a history of violence against children and showed no remorse for committing the brutal assault even after the infant died.
In her witness statement to the prosecution, the babysitter said the infant was still breathing after the assault but was unresponsive and eventually died in her lap.
The 25-year-old claimed the Saudi man declared that the baby ‘deserved to die because he was an illegitimate child’, and wanted to bury him in secret without involving the authorities.
Dahoom, the son of the Thai sex worker and an unidentified man, was reportedly rarely visited by his mum, who allegedly paid the babysitter to monitor him full-time.
“I started taking care of the baby when he was just a month old. He cried often and needed a lot of attention,” she said.
“My boyfriend (Saudi suspect) helped me with the babysitting, and would bottle-feed the baby and bathe him.
“However, he would carry the baby improperly, not the way one is supposed to carry an infant. When he cried, he would tell the baby to ‘cry to death’.
“He is a calm person, but when he is under the influence, he becomes irritable and cannot tolerate noise. He beat me several times and also hit some of the kids I watch, aged three to four, as a way to discipline them.”
The GDN earlier reported that the couple later claimed the child had fallen from his crib and died.
Among the evidences presented by the Public Prosecution were a report that the Saudi man’s DNA was recovered from the injury on the baby’s forehead, the man’s confession and his re-enactment of the incident.
The medical examiner, the report’s author, earlier told judges that the victim suffered severe trauma to the head, internal bleeding and swelling in the brain, which all appeared intentional.
“When authorities arrived at the crime scene, the body of a child was found in a crib in the apartment’s living room, laying on his back wearing only a diaper, with purple bruises and a cut on his forehead,” the prosecutor earlier told judges.
However, the High Criminal Court in July stated in its ruling that, had the appellant intended to kill the child, “he would have continued to beat him until he died right then and there.”
A third Thai woman was found guilty of vice charges and not renewing her visa, and was sentenced to six months in jail.
All four appellants will be deported after completing their sentences.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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