An appeals court has upheld the guilt of a drug abuser who brutally assaulted his wife with a metal dumbbell breaking both her jaws and resulting in the loss of nine teeth.
In June this year, the High Criminal Court sentenced the 34-year-old unemployed husband to seven years in prison after convicting him of battering his spouse and leaving her with a long-term disability.
The misanthropic Bahraini was also convicted of possessing, for personal use, methamphetamine which reportedly fuelled the delusions and paranoia that drove him to commit the gruesome assault.
He took to the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court to contest the ruling, but judges rejected his appeal and stated that he had no grounds to request being treated with a measure of mercy.
“The court considers the sentence given to the appellant suitable to the crime he committed, and does not see a reason to issue an alternative penalty,” read the verdict.
The GDN earlier reported that judges in the first instance court granted the wife’s petition to sue the defendant for damages in Civil Court.
A medical report indicated the injuries that the Bahraini wife sustained constituted a 10 per cent disability, having suffered fractures in both jaws and losing nine teeth.
In previous sessions, the court heard spine-chilling details about the violent incident, in which the domestic abuser reportedly bludgeoned the victim with a heavy sports implement.
The victim recounted her harrowing ordeal before the Public Prosecution, stating 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 her 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 testified of the horror she experienced.
“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 of her and fled the room.
After hearing the sounds, the abuser’s brother testified to rushing upstairs 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’.
“When our mum confronted my brother, he calmly told us to let him speak to his wife, despite the bloody scene we just saw,” the witness told prosecutors.
The victim reported the assault at a 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 Health Ministry psychiatric 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.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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