Dubai: A taxi driver will be sentenced in absentia after he failed to appear in court on a charge of the fatal assault of a passenger who died of cardiac arrest.
Prosecutors accused the 44-year-old Pakistani driver of the fatal beating of the Asian passenger, H.A.
The defendant, M.N., failed to appear in Dubai Court of First Instance Wednesday when Presiding Judge Fahmi Mounir called him to read out his charges.
Prosecutors said the accused beat H.A. with his hands. A forensic doctor testified that the assault's intensity caused the victim to go into a cardiac arrest and die.
A Yemeni policeman, who said he questioned the victim 10 minutes before he died, testified during prosecution. "We were informed about the assault at Al Khaleej Street around 2.15am," he told the court.
"When we [my colleague and I] arrived, I saw M.N.'s clothes covered with bloodstains. H.A. sat on the pavement and he was vomiting and suffered a stomach ache. I called an ambulance.
"The driver alleged that when he insisted on H.A. to specify his direction, the latter cursed him…so he [M.N.] called the police. H.A. beat him until he bled. M.N. claimed that he pulled over and ordered H.A. to leave the taxi and wait for the police to come."
A paramedic who treated H.A. testified: "He alleged to me that someone beat him while he was in the taxi…Ten minutes later, police summoned me again to check on H.A., whom I found dead in a police car's back seat."
The court will hand down its sentence next week. According to Presiding Judge Mounir, M.N. had been notified about Wednesday 's hearing.
