Abu Dhabi: Six witnesses in the Al Reem murder trial testified before the Federal Supreme Court on Monday, including the Egyptian-American doctor whose house was allegedly the target of a homemade bomb last December.
The witnesses gave testimony in the case of an Emirati woman, Ala’a Al Hashemi, who is charged with stabbing to death American kindergarten teacher, Ibolya Ryan, in the women’s bathroom of the Reem Island Boutik Mall last December.
The suspect is also believed to have planted a homemade bomb outside the home of an Egyptian-American family living in Khalidiya.
Dr Mohammad Hassan Hassan, 56, and his son, Esmail, 14, told the court that the doctor’s wife discovered an odd looking object at the entrance of their Khalidiya apartment when she asked her son to go to the mosque to perform Al Maghrib (sunset) prayers.
The strange object roused the woman’s suspicions prompting her to call her husband who was at work in Shaikh Khalifa Medical City.
Dr Hassan said that he immediately went home and his wife called the police which sent a specialised explosives unit to deal with the situation. The building containing the bomb was also evacuated in order to complete the search for similar devices.
Primitive bomb
The witness said that his wife sent a picture of the explosive to him before he arrived home and that the authorities told him that it was a primitive bomb planted in front of his home with the intention of sabotage. He also stated that the police told him that there were no personal factors or motivation behind placing the bomb.
The doctor also revealed that two weeks before the incident, a woman wearing a niqab (face covering) visited his house and, without revealing her identity or her appearance, asked his wife about a European woman living in the same building. When the visitor insisted on knowing the answer to this question, the doctor’s wife called security who then escorted the woman out of the building.
Afterwards, a Filipina and a Ukranian woman, in addition to one of the Boutik’s security guards, gave their testimonies. The two women said that they were in the women’s bathroom when the murder of Ibolya Ryan occurred and that they had heard screaming inside the stall.
The women also stated that they had seen from under the gap of the door, the edge of an abaya and the hand of a "white woman" trying to push away a big knife through the gap to the outside of the stall. They then witnessed a woman wearing an abaya, shayla (headscarf) and a niqab leaving the bathroom stall shouting "this crazy woman" and heading towards the exit.
This is when one of the witnesses said that she called the security guards who refused to enter the women’s bathroom and instead opted to summon a female member of the mall’s security team.
Periodic checks
Finally, an officer working on the investigation and in charge of arresting the accused, displayed the items the suspect wore during her crime.
Presiding judge Falah Al Hajeri postponed the session until May 18 to hear the medical team’s report on the defendant’s mental condition given that they have decided not to admit her to a hospital but to instead periodically check on her while she remains in prison.
The witnesses were also exempt from paying the Dh1,000 that the judge had previously asked them to pay for not attending the previous session.
