Wudeema’s father to spend life in Dubai jail

Dubai: An Emirati father will spend the rest of his life in jail for confining and torturing his eight-year-old daughter Wudeema to death.

The 30-year-old father, Hamad Saud Al Shirawi, escaped the death sentence after Dubai’s highest court rejected on Monday prosecutors’ appeal to stiffen the penalty from a life sentence to a capital punishment.

The Dubai Cassation Court confirmed the life imprisonment sentence against Hamad and his 28-year-old Emirati girlfriend, Al Onoud Al Ameri, who were both convicted of confining and torturing Wudeema to death.

Around 9am, a jail guard was spotted accompanying Hamad into courtroom 22 where he presented his defence argument before a bench of five judges.

Dressed in his red-striped white prison dress while holding a bunch of handwritten papers, and after requesting permission to talk, Hamad said: “Dubai Police’s forensic examiner failed to confirm the real cause of Wudeema’s death. Prosecution witnesses gave contradicting statements. The scenario in which prosecutors said I committed the crime was nothing more than fabrications from my ex-wife. Why would I be accused of confining my two daughters although a Sharia court had granted me their custody! Actually their mother ditched them.”

According to Monday’s ruling, the Cassation Court confirmed the life sentence against Al Shirawi and Al Onoud.

The Emirati couple was convicted of confining Wudeema and torturing her to death using different forms of physical violence and emotional and mental torture.

The defendants were also convicted of causing 10 per cent permanent disability to Al Shirawi’s younger daughter, Meera, whose uncle freed her from the flat where she and Wudeema were being confined in Al Warqa’a.

In his quick deliberation before the court, Hamad accused his ex-wife [mother of Wudeema and seven-year-old Meera] of causing him so much trouble.

“How can I be perceived as an abductor while I was the official custodian of the two girls? My wife, Al Onoud, did not show up in court today because my newborn son [Saud], who was born in prison, is sick in hospital. I wonder what my son will be told in the future… that I brought him to this life to be born and raised in prison. I also wonder whether the verdict today [Cassation Court’s judgement] is going to be in my favour or the media’s favour,” argued Wudeema’s father.

During Monday’s quick trial, the convicted father denied prosecutors’ allegations that he had confined his daughters by providing the presiding bench with the Sharia court ruling confirming that he was the girls’ custodian following his divorce from his ex-wife.

In June, the Dubai Appeal Court commuted Al Shirawi’s death sentence to life in jail and upheld Al Onoud’s life sentence.

The couple (Hamad and Al Onoud) claim to be married, although they were tried for having consensual sex.

The defendants were convicted of locking Wudeema and her younger sister Meera in a flat in Al Warqa’a where they beat and tortured the girls.

Wudeema died and her heavily decomposed body was recovered from a hole in Sharjah’s Al Badayer area in June 2012. Meera sustained ten per cent permanent disability.

Before closing his argument, Hamad told the court that he would accept and respect the highest court’s judgement.

“Thank God, I am satisfied and my conscience is clear,” he concluded.

Hamad and Al Onoud pleaded not guilty to mistreating and torturing the two sisters, keeping them unfed and confining them in the washroom in a locked flat for a period of six months in Al Warqa’a.