(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The Emirati man on death row for torturing his eight-year-old daughter Wadeema to death in a case which is the subject of ramped up child protection laws, claimed his appeal against his initial conviction is because of an "absence of concrete
evidence".
Addressing the Court of Appeal's bench on Sunday, 29-year-old Hamad. S., an ex-security supervisor, categorically denied the charges of torturing and illegally confining and depriving his two daughters, 8 and 7, of their freedom with the use of force, which led to the death of the eldest and the permanent injury of Mira.
He stressed he treated both his daughters well but said "the investigators discarded that when building the case against (him)".
Hamad was convicted of the torture charges against him in February and was sentenced to death. He also said that his accomplice, his 27-year-old Emirati girlfriend A.A, who had earlier pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison by the Court of First Instance for the same charges, only confessed due to the stress from her pregnancy. A.A, who Hamad claimed was his wife, has since given birth to the couple's son.
The convicted father alleged he did not inflict the injuries and burns on the body of his daughter Mira, blaming a housemaid for some of them and the hospital where she was admitted later for shortcomings in her treatment.
Hamad claimed to the presiding Judge that his eldest girl Wadeema was 'possessed' and that her sister often heard her speaking in a voice which was not hers. He also claimed that the investigators did not take his brother's testimony into consideration in addition to other elements and facts which proved that he loved and treated his two daughters well.
He showed the court some pictures of him with his daughters while at a stay at a hotel, as evidence of his claims. The case has been adjourned to April 14.
The initial verdict text, that convicted Hamad and A.A., read that they tortured the two daughters for around six months by depriving them of their simplest rights of food and clothes and imprisoning them in H.S.'s rented flat in International City. Hamad denied earlier torture and false imprisonment charges but admitted that he hid Wadeema's body by burying it in a remote desert location in Al Badayer in Sharjah without the proper official authorisation.Â
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