An expatriate carpenter, sentenced to three years behind bars after pushing his roommate down a flight of stairs in a fracas over failing to repay a BD20 loan, has objected to his guilty verdict at court.
Earlier this month, the High Criminal Court found the 35-year-old Bangladeshi guilty in absentia for assault and unintentionally inflicting a disability on the victim.
Bahraini law gives an opportunity to object to an absentia verdict, if the defendant appears in court to challenge it. The man is not only objecting to the jail sentence but also to a deportation order.
The court heard that he had given his flatmate a BD20 loan. “He didn’t return it to me even though I kept asking,” the Bangladeshi victim, a flexi-visa worker, told the Public Prosecution about the April incident.
“One day, I was smoking on the rooftop of our building in Muharraq, when he came up. I asked him for my money back, and he said that I had no way to prove that he owed me anything.
Incident
“After I told him I was going to report him to the police and was descending the stairs, he pushed me and I tumbled on the steps and onto the ground.”
According to a medical report, the 37-year-old suffered fractures to his foot that required surgery, including the permanent placement of screws and plates to set broken bones.
The report stated that he now walks with a ‘slight limp’ and will experience swelling and pain. Medical experts evaluated the long-term injury as a ‘10 per cent disability’, the court heard.
A witness testified to seeing the incident unfold, and recounted that the fight began after an argument over a loan, which escalated into the two men cursing at each other and eventually turned physical.
The Bangladeshi housepainter stated that the men had been playing cards before the row broke out.
Documents described the fall as ‘equivalent to a one-storey fall’, adding that the defendant pushed the victim with both hands to his chest, leading him to tumble backwards.
Judges adjourned the new hearing to March 2, when a lawyer will be appointed by the court to represent the defendant.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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