Man who stabbed pregnant wife to death has sentence rejected for a third time

ABU DHABI // The Cassation Court has for a third time rejected the sentence issued to a man who stabbed his pregnant wife to death after just 65 days of marriage.

A J M, from Egypt, was convicted of murdering his Syrian wife after she was found in a pool of blood at their home in Al Gharbia by her brother. The brother alerted police and the husband was arrested 48 hours later in Bahrain.

A J M was first sentenced to death by the Al Dhafra Criminal Court who found him guilty, and the Appeals Court upheld the verdict and sentence.

When the case was referred to Cassation Court, it sent it back to the Appeals Court because of an error in procedures – the death verdict was missing the consent of all judges.

The Appeals Court once again upheld the death sentence, but the Cassation Court again rejected it because the verdict was missing procedures to prove details concerning the blood relatives.

For a third time the case went to the Appeals Court which again found A J M guilty, but replaced the death sentence with five years in prison due to extreme provocation from the victim.

But once again the Cassation Court rejected this because for extreme provocation to apply as a factor in cancelling the death sentence there are certain factors that need to be present as per Sharia, and those factors were missing.

Moreover, the Appeals Court did not examine many details that contradict with convicting A J M. The details include the presence of two knives instead of one in the crime scene, contradictions between A J M’s confessions and evidence presented by forensics with regards to the number of stabs, position of the victim and fingerprints found on the wife’s car.

The case files also lack legal evidence that A J M was the killer, and the court did not investigate injuries found on the hands and face of the victim’s brother.

Prosecutors said a fight broke out between A J M and his wife after he discovered she was pregnant and suspected the child was not his. She refused to abort the baby as he wanted, so her brother visited her to help resolve the dispute.

The victim insisted on keeping the baby and requested a divorce, which caused A J M to seek revenge and kill her.

On the morning of the killing, he stabbed his wife in the chest, neck and stomach until she died and lost the foetus. He then stole her brother’s phone and drove his wife’s car towards the airport.

When he reached Bani Yas he parked the car and took a taxi.

When his brother-in-law discovered his dead sister he called the police and A J M was arrested in Bahrain.