A lawyer representing a woman accused of manslaughter of a roommate who died following a flat blaze has claimed that the fire was not the defendant’s fault, writes Kawthar Ebrahim.
During the hearing, the attorney made an unsupported claim that the blaze victim died due to a medical error by emergency doctors, who he accused of misdiagnosing her condition.
In his verbal argument before judges, he also claimed that the fire may not have been started by a candle lit by the defendant, rather by a faulty electrical outlet close by.
The High Criminal Court heard that the tragedy took place on May 30, when the 23-year-old Indian defendant lit a candle to pray before her home shrine and left it to burn.
She was charged with manslaughter and unintentionally causing a blaze in the Amwaj apartment, which the court was told that she had admitted to.
As part of her defence, the Indian woman’s legal representative claimed in court that the medics who treated the roommate had allegedly made an error of judgement, suggesting that they had misdiagnosed the cause of her poisoning.
“The amount of CO inhaled by the victim was 36.4 per cent, which isn’t sufficient to cause immediate death, but requires urgent medical attention,” he said.
“The victim was alive for about an hour-and-a-half after being transported to the hospital. If she had received the correct treatment, she would still be alive.”
The May incident began with the defendant lighting a candle next to her Hindu home shrine, which erupted into a full-scale apartment fire.
A flatmate recounted that the bedroom that the shrine was placed in was on fire, and that the victim was stuck in the bathroom, screaming “fire, fire!”
She and two of her roommates managed to escape, but were unable to rescue the trapped woman due to the flames and smoke.
The Civil Defence arrived but were unable to save the woman.
According to court documents, the victim was taken to the hospital at 2.30pm and died at 3.55pm. In her autopsy, the medical examiner noted dark spots on her body and face from the smoke.
In a defence memo submitted to judges, the lawyer further attempted to cast doubt on the cause of the fire.
“The defendant assumed that the fire was started by the candle, but that should not be taken as a confession,” he explained.
“There was an electrical outlet near the table which could have been the cause.”
“The candle is made from flour and rice, both flame-retardant materials. Even if all the wax melted, it would be impossible for the base to catch fire,” he claimed.
The lawyer went to blame the building management for not following safety regulations, stating that the bathroom the victim was stuck in had no windows or ventilation, with a door that reportedly could not be opened from the outside.
He added that the defendant was neither aware of the safety precautions and emergency procedure, nor did she know how to stop the fire.
A verdict will be issued in the case on August 11.
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