Engineer denies threatening to kill wife

Dubai: An engineer has denied charges of slander and threatening to kill his wife before a criminal court.

This comes only a few days after a Sharia court dismissed her request for a divorce.

The 38-year-old Indian engineer pleaded not guilty to murder threat and defamation charges before the Dubai Court of First Instance.

The Public Prosecution charged the engineer with threatening to burn and kill his wife, 32, also from India, by causing a car accident if she did not recommit herself to their marriage.

He was also charged with defaming his wife, who works as a secretary, on her mobile phone by wrongfully accusing her of sleeping with two men.

When Presiding Judge Fahmi Mounir confronted the man with the charges against him, the engineer shook his head disapprovingly and denied all charges.

Earlier this month the Dubai Sharia Court of Appeal dismissed the wife's claim for divorce because she had failed to notify him in a proper manner.

Knew address

The Dubai Sharia Court of First Instance had granted her divorce, but the husband appealed the initial ruling.

He convinced the Sharia Court of Appeal that his wife knew his residential address and contact details but she failed to notify him properly.

In her statement to the Public Prosecution (which was taken before the Sharia Court of Appeal's ruling and read out yesterday), the wife testified: "We got married more than two years ago. Thereafter he repeatedly harassed and belittled me over the phone, especially by wrongfully accusing me of having sex with two other men ... he threatened to kill me by planning a traffic accident if I failed to return to him."

The court will reconvene to hear prosecution witnesses soon.