Dubai: The Dubai Court of First Instance will on Wednesday issue a verdict on an Emirati man accused of raping and murdering a four-year-old boy in a mosque's washroom on Eid Al Adha.
Chief Prosecutor Yousuf Foulaz had asked the three-member jury to hand down the toughest punishment applicable, capital punishment, against the 30-year-old, R.R.R.
According to the Federal Procedures Law, if Presiding Judge Fahmi Mounir and his two deputy judges, Dr Ali Al Galadari and Mansour Al Awadi, impose capital punishment, the judgment will be automatically reviewed by the Appeals Court. Should the lower court's verdict be affirmed by the Appeals Court, it also becomes automatically appealed before the Dubai Cassation Court.
The case attracted unprecedented and huge media and public interest since it happened last November.
R.R.R.'s lawyer, advocate Mohammad Al Sa'adi, said his client should have been placed under police surveillance since he had a long criminal record.
Psychiatric experts testified that although the suspect is a paedophile obsessed with boys, he is stable and sane.
"Previous police and prosecution records showed he had been convicted and sentenced in sex-related crimes. The medical committee said he was mentally stable and aware of his behaviour and actions at the time of the recent rape-murder incident," said Al Sa'adi.
"Since his release in the crime before the last one, the suspect R.R. should have been placed under police surveillance," he argued.
The court-assigned lawyer told the court in a previous hearing: "Had R.R. been monitored by the police, there could have been a possibility that the rape-murder crime of four-year-old, M.M., could not have happened."
Al Sa'adi said his client gave a detailed confession during investigations and by that he shut all the possible means to defend him.
