BAHRAIN’s highest court has rejected the final appeal of a bus driver who attempted to kill his former partner with a hammer, fracturing her jaws and leaving her with a ‘five per cent permanent disability’.
Yesterday, the Cassation Court upheld the 10-year-prison term of the Ghanaian man, who was earlier found guilty of attacking his Kenyan friend after forcing his way into her flat in Sitra.
As a result of the brutal assault, she lost five teeth, sustained an eye injury and suffered cuts that reached up to her skull, for which she had to undergo multiple surgeries.
The incident occurred in January 2025, when the 43-year-old defendant broke into the residence of the 38-year-old domestic worker, with whom he had been in a relationship for a year before she ended it.
A scuffle broke out and the enraged ex-lover pushed the woman onto the bed, took out a green-coloured metal hammer and attacked her face with it.
The woman started bleeding profusely, and after she lost consciousness, the appellant thought he had killed her and got up to wipe the blood splattered on the wall.
The victim heard a knock on the door – a friend of hers had arrived to change a gas cylinder – and took the brief distraction as an opportunity to get up and flee.
After being admitted to Salmaniya Medical Complex’s accidents and emergencies department, the woman underwent maxillofacial surgery to stabilise her wounds.
However, doctors were unable to reverse the effects of the vicious assault and a medical examiner ruled that her injuries constituted a five per cent permanent disability.
A medical report revealed that the woman had sustained injuries to her head and ear, internal injuries in the skull, fractures in the jaws, had lost five of her upper teeth and suffered multiple lacerations.
Two days after the incident, she underwent plastic surgery to close her facial and scalp wounds, and bleeding in the cornea. She was put on a diet of soft food while she recovered.
A medical discharge report noted that she suffered cuts that reached up to the skull, exposed her cartilage, and also lost tissue and skin as a result of the attack.
The court heard that the victim’s friend, who arrived at the door, was shocked to see her rushing out in a distressed state with her face covered in blood.
He stepped inside the apartment, attempting to restrain the appellant who managed to escape on to the street.
Judges heard that a second witness, a 24-year-old Bahraini man from Al Kharijiya, spotted the attempted murderer’s bloodied shirt and immediately realised something was amiss.
He followed the fleeing appellant in his car and called the police while keeping an eye on him.
The accused was apprehended and arrested shortly afterwards.
The victim’s sister, who was alerted and went to the hospital, said that it took two hours for her sibling to regain consciousness.
According to the High Criminal Court verdict, the two Africans had been in a relationship for a year before the Kenyan woman asked to end it, leaving the Ghanaian man in shock.
In July, the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court rejected the man’s first appeal, stating that all the facts were already clear in the original verdict, and that the court ‘finds that there is no merit in discussing the case again.
He later lost his second appeal at the Cassation Court.
zainab@gdnmedia.bhv
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