Dubai: A court of appeal in Qatar looked into challenges presented in the case of the British teacher killed by a Qatari national on Monday.
The defendant was last month sentenced to death by a lower court, while his accomplice was given a three-year jail term for his role in the murder that shocked the nation where crime rate is among the lowest in the world.
However, both the defendants’ lawyer keen on a lighter ruling and the public prosecutor who wanted a harsher sentence for the accomplice, had appealed the verdict.
According to the case papers, the murder occurred in October when Badr Khamis Abdullah Hashim stabbed Lauren Patterson, 24, then burned her body with the help of his accomplice, Mohammad Hassan Abdul Aziz.
A report carried by Qatari daily Al Raya on Tuesday said that the victim’s friend testified that the two women were with the two defendants at a hotel in the Qatari capital Doha and left at around 3.30am.
The witness, identified by the British press as Lea Monet, 22, said that Patterson had drinks but was not intoxicated when they left.
She added that the two men dropped her at her home and drove on to take Patterson to where she lived.
Monet called her friend at 9.30am, and again at 2pm, but the phone was switched off, she said.
The witness added that she met the first defendant later, at around 6pm, and he took her to the building he claimed to have dropped Patterson to.
However, the witness said that it was not Patterson’s building and the two started looking for the correct address.
After some time, she asked him to call the police, but he hesitated and left without making the call, she said.
In her statement, Lea said that she and Patterson had at times met the two defendants on weekends. She said that nothing extraordinary had happened on the night of the murder. There were no arguments or fights, the Qatari daily quoted her as saying.
In his statement, Hashim said that he drove the victim to Abdul Aziz’s house and then went home.
He later returned to his friend’s house and found Patterson at the house gate looking for another friend, he said.
Hashim claimed that Patterson asked him to call the friend, but he suggested taking her home instead. She refused and preferred to stay at Abdul Aziz’s house. He added that they remained there and that when he wanted to have sex with her, to which she agreed.
However, she later started talking about her other friend and believed he was in the house, Hashim claimed.
“I advised her to go to sleep, but I was later surprised to see her hold a knife and try to attack me, accusing me of hiding her friend from her,” Hashim said.
According to the defendant, the two had a physical fight and he successfully disarmed her.
“She was standing half a metre away from me and I took the knife and stabbed her in the chest. I did not pull out the knife and she fell on her back,” he said, quoted by the Qatari daily. “I went over to her body and pressed on the knife until the blade was deep inside her. Blood fell on the carpet and she died on the spot.”
He added that he panicked and went upstairs where he changed his clothes.
“I woke my friend up — the second defendant — and he saw my state. I told him I was looking for the car key. I then went downstairs and wrapped the victim in a blanket while the knife was still in her rib cage. I put the body in the car trunk. It was around 7am. I headed to a petrol station where I bought a bottle of water and emptied it. I asked the station employee to fill it up with petrol. Then, I went back to the house where I found my friend in the living room. I informed him about what happened and we took the car. I later told him I planned to burn the body,” he said.
The killer told the police that the idea of burning the body came to him “because no-one would believe me if I said that I did not kill her because we had sex. If they examine the body, they will discover we had sex and they will claim that I raped then killed her,” he said.
He added that the pair bought four bags of charcoal and headed towards abandoned houses in a deserted area.
The two dug a grave, put the charcoal and set it on fire, he said.
Abdul Aziz told investigators that he was with his friend at a hotel in Doha earlier that night when they saw the victim and her friend.
When they left together, the killer drove them home with the Abdul Aziz sitting next to him and the two young women in the back seat, he said.
“We dropped the victim’s friend at her home while the victim stayed with us and we went home. We reached there at around 4 am. I was drunk and went to sleep while [Hashim] and the victim stayed together in the living room upstairs,” he said.
He added that he heard his friend’s version of what happened afterwards, but saw the knife in the woman’s chest only when they were disposing of the body in the Kharara area.
According to the report carried by Al Raya, the police were alerted to the murder at around 4 pm on that day when a Qatari family, who arrived in the area, smelled something was burning and decided to check the source.
They discovered the body and called the police who alerted the public prosecutor and the investigation and forensic teams.
The body was completely charred, but the knife was found, prompting initial speculation that the victim had been stabbed.
Charges leveled by the public prosecution against Hashim included murder, illegal sex rapports, carrying a white weapon, concealing crime evidence, violating the sanctity of a dead body, and drinking.
Abdul Aziz was charged with hiding the victim’s body and crime evidence, violating the sanctity of a dead body and drinking.
The prosecution asked for string sentences against both defendants and a QR 20 million fine in compensation.
The daily did not specify what the court of appeals decided as it reviewed the case.
The death sentence ordered by the lower court, if upheld, would be by hanging or a death squad.
