Dubai court commutes imprisonment of a worker, upholds deportation verdict

Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter

The Court of First Instance sentenced an Asian worker to six months in jail to be followed by deportation for assaulting his workmate with a wooden stick, causing him a permanent disability of 20 per cent following a verbal altercation between them.

The Court of Appeal, however, reduced the sentence to a stay of execution but upheld the deportation decision.

The case dated back to September last year when a worker in a construction site reported to the police that his workmate had been assaulted by another workmate who hit him on the head with a wooden stick, causing him to lose his balance and fall to the ground, bleeding.

The man stated that while trying to rest during the afternoon, the victim lied on a plastic bag but the defendant pulled the bag, alleging that it belonged to him.

This led to a verbal altercation between the victim and the defendant that snowballed into a fight, he added, noting that the defendant subsequently picked up a wooden stick from the worksite and hit the victim on the head, causing him to fall on the ground.

An ambulance took victim to the hospital for the necessary medical treatment and the police was notified of what happened.

According to the forensic report of the General Department of Forensic Science and Criminology at Dubai Police, the assault caused fractures in the left parietal and temporal bones of the skull, which deprived the brain of its natural protection and made it vulnerable to infections, spasms or bruises. The fractures caused an estimated permanent disability of about 20 per cent to the victim, it added.

During the court session, the defendant denied intentionally hitting the victim, pleading that he was acting in self-defence. It was the victim who started it as he came to his room during the break and started assaulting him, he added, noting that he hit him with a wooden stick on the head to defend himself.