Witness in torture dad case says Dubai flat was 'not fit for humans'

A new witness to the case where an Emirati father and his girlfriend tortured his daughter to death says the apartment they lived in was "not fit for humans".

DUBAI // A woman accused of helping a father torture his daughter to death claimed to a policeman that the girl freely chose to eat her own faeces.

The claim was made to a CID officer who interrogated the father's girlfriend after the body of Wadeema, 8, was found buried in the desert in Al Badayer, Sharjah.

The policeman was one of two new witnesses to testify in the case brought against the father, 29-year-old H?S, and his girlfriend, A?M, 27, who are both accused of murdering Wadeema, as well as torturing her and her seven-year-old sister Mira, who survived.

A second policeman from the Crime Scene Investigation department said that when he inspected the studio apartment in International City where the father lived with his girlfriend and two daughters, he saw a place that "was not fit for humans to live in".

He added that he also inspected two irons that were used to torture the girls.
In yesterday's hearing at the Criminal Court the girlfriend appeared holding her newborn child who was fathered by her co-defendant.

The couple were arrested after a visit to the apartment by the girls' uncle. Mira told him that her father and his girlfriend had been torturing them and that Wadeema had died because of this.

When it was Mira's turn yesterday to testify, her father requested the courtroom to be cleared of journalists.

The judges agreed to listen to her testimony in the deliberation room.

The next hearing was scheduled for November 25.