Woman loses fingertip in prison catfight

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A detained investor crying over financial woes bit off a fellow inmate’s fingertip for poking fun at her, a jury heard on Tuesday.

Both the Arab investor, 34, and Arab employee, 44, traded a barrage of obscenities, spat on each other and exchanged blows. The fight saw the investor digging teeth in the employee’s right index finger, records showed.

She bit off all the tip segment. She was accused of insulting and biting the employee. The employee sustained a 5 per cent permanent deformity. The investor denied and argued that she was acting in self-defence.

“I request the court to review surveillance footage. I was away from her. She pulled me towards her and assaulted me. I defended myself,” she argued before Judge Muhammad Jamaal Kaamil at the Dubai Criminal Court.

The employee who faces charges of insulting the investor using foul words, slapping her eye and face and pulling her by the hair was not questioned during the session. The jury set May 21 to find a lawyer for the investor. Before prosecutors, the employee said she was inside a Dubai detention facility’s canteen when the investor spat on its floor. “When I told her to stop it she insulted me,” she said. “I told her she was a sick person.”

When she walked out to the yard, the investor followed her while pelting her with obscenities. “I told her to avoid talking to me. She suddenly seized my hand and bit my finger, plucking out its nail and severing a part of it.”

The investor on the other hand argued that she was outside the detention ward when she contacted a female relative and started discussing her financial problems. “During the phone call I started crying,” she explained.

“The employee showed up and started ridiculing me saying ‘you are always weeping and making drama.’ I told her to avoid interfering in my affairs. We returned inside the ward. She provoked me saying I always walked out to weep.

“I told her it was none of her business. All of a sudden, she threw spittle at me. I turned to her and spat on her. She grabbed me by the hair and pulled me backwards. She grabbed and squeezed my mouth. I bit her finger.”

Other female inmates intervened to separate the duo. An Emirati captain said, “The employee told me the investor spat near her (while in the canteen). She went to the washroom. The investor pursued, insulted and bit her. The investor stood shocked saying nothing.” An ambulance took the employee to hospital.