Woman 'admits torturing girl to death'
2012-07-05 12:00
Dubai - The girlfriend of an Emirati man whose two daughters were allegedly tortured, one of them to death, has admitted full responsibility for the crime, local media reported on Thursday.
"The girlfriend of Wadeema and Meera's father admitted at the criminal court in Dubai that she alone had tortured the two girls, leaving Wadeema dead and Meera with a permanent disability," Al-Ittihad daily said.
The father had admitted burying 8-year-old Wadeema in a remote area to hide her body, it added.
Another local daily, Gulf News, said that the 29-year-old father had told police during interrogation that he had beaten his daughters "because he wanted to exorcise jinn [supernatural spirits] from their bodies".
Last month, state news agency WAM quoted Attorney General Essam al-Humaidan as saying that Hamad Saud Juma al-Shirawi, a security official, and his girlfriend Al-Anoud Mohammed al-Ameri, a 27-year-old housewife, had tortured the two girls over a six-month period at their Dubai flat.
They are charged with torturing Wadeema to death and burying her without a permit, as well as leaving her sister Meera with a permanent disability.
The couple are charged with imprisoning and using physical and mental torture against Wadeema and 7-year-old Meera.
They "used all forms of brutal torture - beating them up, burning them with an iron and cigarettes, and pouring boiled water on their bodies", Humaidan said.
The accused also tortured the girls with electric shocks and locked them up in "the bathroom and in the closet, leaving them for hours without water or food".
WAM reported last month that Dubai's public prosecutor will demand the death penalty in the case. The next hearing will be on 11 July.
