Jail term upheld for man who threw wife from Dubai balcony

DUBAI // A court has upheld a three-year sentence and Dh2,000 fine for a man who urinated on his wife and baby and then threw the wife from a second-floor balcony.

JS, a 37-year-old Tajik businessman, was found guilty of attempted murder at Dubai Criminal Court in September last year.

In April last year, he asked his wife, FZ, 18, to bring their baby daughter to a hotel apartment he was renting in Al Rafaa.

When FZ arrived, she asked JS what he had been doing, and the pair argued. He had been drinking, the court heard.

"He started screaming at me, then hit me several times on my head while I was holding our baby," she said. She begged him to stop, and he snatched her phone and smashing it on the floor.

He then called another woman and told her he had assaulted his wife. "She told him that I deserved it and that I had relations with other men and that she could find another woman for him to marry," said the wife. "He then urinated on me and our baby then left."

The woman said she could remember nothing after this until she woke up in hospital.

Her husband claimed his wife had jumped after he confronted her about working as a prostitute.

When a security guard tried to help, the husband fled - because, he told the court, he was afraid police would arrest him over a number of bounced cheques. He was arrested nearby shortly after.

The Dubai Court of Cassation upheld his jail sentence, fine and deportation order. It also upheld an order for him to pay his wife Dh21,000 compensation.