Couple get 10 years for torturing mom to death

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

An employee teamed up with his wife to torture his mother to death. Both must spend ten years behind bars plus deportation, the Criminal Court ruled on Wednesday.

The Asian defendant, 29, and his compatriot wife, 28, assaulted the victim, 50s, and left her with multiple fractures and damaged muscles. They burnt her and dislocated her eyes, Al Qusais Police Station records showed.

The torture campaign started from Jul.15 until Oct.31, 2018 when she succumbed to assault injuries, fractures and internal haemorrhage. Prosecutors clarified that both assaulted her without intending to kill.

Both denied. The wife begged to be released because she had a little baby. On Wednesday she burst into tears upon learning the jury’s decision. “I have done nothing please,” she reiterated as jail wardens led her away.

An Egyptian forensic doctor said a post mortem report confirmed the victim was tortured for months with a hot iron along with other means including beating, neglect and starvation. She died weighing 29kg only. 

The couple’s female neighbour explained, “The wife came to my apartment carrying her baby girl. She told me her husband’s mother had come from India to look after the girl but failed to offer the required care.

“She said that during the mother’s tenure as the babysitter, the baby was falling sick every now and then. She added that the mother left for India thus she had no one to look after the baby when she left for work.”

The neighbour tasked her flatmate with looking after the baby. “Three days later, I had gone to spread my clothes inside a laundry room when I stumbled on a half-naked old woman in a deplorable condition.

“She had burns all over her body. She panicked to tell me the cause. By the time I returned with the watchman she had gone. We knocked from door to door and found her stretched on the floor of a third-floor flat. I saw the defendant near her. He told me she was his mother and claimed that she preferred sleeping on the salon’s floor. The wife reiterated the same statement.” The neighbour contacted ambulance services.

Paramedics lifted her as she screamed in excruciating pain, shedding tears and telling them not to touch her. An Indian doctor said, “She had facial and neck scratches apart from burns and swellings all over her body.”

A Kenyan paramedic said she asked the defendant and he claimed his mother poured hot water on herself. Her Filipina colleague said, “He stood at a distance without helping even as neighbours joined hands with us.”