Dubai: The lawyer of a British editor serving a 10-year imprisonment for killing his wife, asked a court to reduce his client’s jail sentence on Sunday.

The court is expected to issue a verdict on October 7.

In March, the Dubai Court of First Instance sentenced the journalist, Francis Matthew, 62, to 10 years in jail for hitting his wife, 63, with a hammer and causing her death.

The primary court had modified the prosecutors’ accusation of premeditated murder to beating that led to death, upon finding Mathew accountable for his wife’s demise.

“Prosecutors appealed the 10-year imprisonment and asked the appellate court to stiffen the punishment, after maintaining that my client had intentionally killed his wife. In their written argument, prosecutors did not produce any new evidence or details. The circumstantial and materialistic evidence that prosecutors had earlier produced against my client remained the same. Witnesses based their statements on the defendant’s testimony. He was the only one present when the incident happened at the couple’s villa in Umm Suqeim in July 2017,” Matthew’s lawyer Ali Abdullah Al Shamsi argued before the Dubai Appeal Court on Sunday.

The defendant, a former Gulf News staff member, did not have any premeditated intention to kill his wife, according to the lawyer, who contended that Mathew “was gripped by a sudden fit of intense outrage triggered by relentless provocation from his wife”.

“The forensic examination report mentioned that there were fingerprints on the victim’s mouth alleging that he had tried to smother her. Well, that was untrue. She undermined and belittled him all night long and relentlessly provoked him, calling him a loser and unmanly. In a previous hearing, the defence team produced in court a consultative forensic doctor who testified that the fingerprints on the victim’s mouth were that of the defendant who was trying to stop her from shouting and cursing him. He did not smother her. The consultative forensic doctor also testified that the defendant was not aware of his actions at the time of the incident as he suffered ‘temporary insanity’,” contended lawyer Al Shamsi.

The lawyer asked presiding judge Eisa Al Sharif to reduce the punishment against his client to the minimum term, which is three months in jail, as per articles 97 and 98 of the Penal Law.

Prosecutors accused the defendant of premeditatedly murdering his wife, before the Court of First Instance altered the charge and downgraded it to fatal assault. Matthew had pleaded not guilty in the case.

According to the Penal Law, Mathew was handed the toughest punishment applicable [10 years in prison].

The primary court was convinced that the July 4 incident was a crime of “assault which led to death” and that Matthew did not have a premeditated intention of killing his wife of 32 years.

The appellate ruling will be delivered on October 7.