A heartless ex-husband and his nasty nephew, who were found responsible of carrying out an horrifying acid attack against a woman, leaving her with ‘irreversible disfigurement’ and immense psychological damage, have lost their appeals at the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court.
In February, the two men were sentenced to 10 years in jail for inflicting a 60 per cent permanent disability on the victim – the uncle’s former wife and the mother of his three children.
The 28-year-old nephew splashed drain cleaner on the unsuspecting woman, following the orders of his 41-year-old uncle, who had fled to Kuwait to avoid going to jail for earlier stalking his victim.
Despite their lawyers urging judges to reduce the sentences by attempting to deflect the blame, the court upheld the verdict, dismissing their myriad arguments.
The nephew’s attorney repeated claims from the initial trial that the appellant was manipulated and drugged by his uncle, and was forced to follow the victim and splash sulphuric acid drain cleaner on her.
As for the uncle, his defence again assumed the strategy of denying all accusations, and maintaining that the appellant could not be linked to the crime in any way and had no knowledge of it.
“If a person takes narcotics by force and their consciousness is affected by it, that is considered an issue with them assuming criminal responsibility,” read the 28-year-old’s defence memo. “What happened here is that the second appellant (uncle) forced the first appellant to do drugs, and it is well-known that meth causes an acute lack of awareness and has a destructive effect on the brain.
“After making sure that our client was no longer in possession of his faculties, his uncle got him to commit his crime on his behalf.”
The defence claimed methamphetamine made the users ‘devoid of feelings or sense’ and allowed them ‘to commit crimes without being fully aware of what’s happening, and without considering the consequences’.
During the initial trial, the 28-year-old was declared fit to stand trial by a panel of psychiatrists.
Meanwhile, the ex-husband’s defence also directed all the blame on his co-conspirator. “The appellant wasn’t caught red-handed, or in the process of doing anything illegal,” his lawyer suggested. “He wasn’t even in the country when his co-appellant did what he did, and he should be given the benefit of the doubt.
“There is no evidence he was involved in his nephew’s actions. The co-appellant has full agency to do right or wrong, and the appellant has no power over him.
“Although he is the former husband of the victim, he remains the father of her children, and had no intention to harm her. All the family issues ended with their separation and divorce. If he wanted to harm her, he would’ve done it while they were still married.”
The defence further claimed that the ex-husband had been on his way to Bahrain when he was arrested by Kuwaiti authorities and handed over their counterparts in the kingdom, but gave no proof of that.
The GDN earlier reported that over the years, the 41-year-old Bahraini had sent death threats to the 37-year-old victim and even previously told her he would ‘melt her face off’.
The 28-year-old nephew earlier admitted to splashing drain cleaner containing sulphuric acid on the victim in front of her two daughters, targeting her in the car park of a popular mall in Manama.
The uncle’s plan to use his nephew to attack his ex-wife was reportedly triggered when the Lower Criminal Court sentenced him to six months in jail for harassing her. He was in Kuwait at the time of the verdict being delivered.
According to the initial verdict, the ex-husband had known where the victim and his daughters were, since he still had a GPS tracker on her vehicle, and told his nephew to ‘finish the job’ by splashing her with acid.
After taking a taxi to the shopping centre, the younger defendant located the victim’s car, and laid in wait for her to return to the vehicle.
When they arrived at the vehicle, the woman and her two daughters, aged nine and 11, noticed a masked individual approaching, and began to film him.
The suspect rushed towards her carrying a plastic container, the court heard, then he opened the lid and threw the liquid on her face and clothing.
As the assailant fled, the Bahraini woman sustained severe burns, and told her friend who was with them to take her daughters home while she awaited an ambulance.
The mother-of-three was left with extensive chemical burns on her face, neck, arm and thighs, along with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after the horrifying incident.
According to the medical examiner’s report, the sulphuric acid attack resulted in a permanent disability, which amounts to 60 per cent, a number that takes into account both physical and psychological harm.
The victim told the prosecution that everything went wrong in their marriage when her then-husband got hooked on methamphetamine, which eventually led to her asking the Sharia court to grant her a divorce.
Sulphuric acid is highly corrosive to human tissue and any exposure to a concentrated version often leads to severe chemical burns. Heat from sulphuric acid’s interaction with carbohydrates produces heat, which can cause secondary thermal burns.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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