A MAN has gone on trial for allegedly brutally assaulting his wife, breaking her jaws and making her lose nine teeth.
The 34-year-old Bahraini was reportedly under the influence of drugs during the attack, the High Criminal Court heard yesterday.
The defendant denied charges of battering his spouse and leaving her with a long-term disability, but admitted to possessing narcotics for personal use.
The court heard gruesome, spine-chilling details of the alleged assault which took place in March this year.
It began with the man waking up his wife and violently beating her with a metal dumbbell and his bare fists.
Recounting the assault, the Bahraini wife earlier told the Public Prosecution that her husband woke her up and without warning sprayed ‘a gaseous substance’ in her face, yelling ‘strange things’ at her.
She added that he pushed her from the bed, and tried to restrain her while on the ground but when she resisted he punched in the face ‘with great force’ and banged her head on the floor several times.
With blood streaming out of her nose and mouth, the victim managed to get up from the floor, but her husband reportedly tripped her and sat on top of her, threatening her with a metal weight.
“He asked me to admit that my family was trying to kill him, that I was a prostitute and that my mother brought me customers,” she said.
“I was afraid, so I agreed with whatever he claimed, but then he viciously struck both my knees and one shoulder with a heavy dumbbell.”
The defendant’s mother and brother, responding to noises from the couple’s apartment, knocked on the door to check what was going on. That was when the wife pushed the defendant off and fled the room.
Meanwhile, the alleged abuser’s brother testified to rushing upstairs after hearing the sounds, and seeing his mother standing in the doorway, asking the suspect to let the victim alone.
He added that he saw his sister-in-law leave the apartment in ‘a pitiful condition’, her face completely swollen up and bleeding from her mouth and nose, while ‘her teeth were not in their place’.
A medical report said the injuries that the woman allegedly sustained constituted a 10 per cent disability, having suffered fractures in both jaws and losing nine teeth.
She reported the assault at the police station, and officers were despatched to the house to arrest the accused, by which time he had reportedly fled the residence.
However, he was eventually arrested and brought to trial.
A special medical committee, which evaluated the defendant, noted that he had a history of abusing narcotics and stimulants, adding that traces of illicit stimulants were found in his urine.
A lawyer representing the battered victim asked judges to allow her to raise a civil suit against the defendant, to cover for damages, after the current trial was over.
The hearing was adjourned to Tuesday for the defence to respond.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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