Prisoner with Aids who dripped his blood into comunal tea pot has sentence reduced

Emirati serving time for drug consumption has additional six-month term reduced to three months on appeal.

DUBAI // A prison inmate suffering from Aids who was sentenced to an additional six months for trying to infect others has had the sentence reduced to three months by the Court of Appeal.

Emirati HM, 20, who is serving time for drug consumption, was convicted of endangering the lives of others after he deliberately injured himself and dripped his blood into a tea pot that was to be distributed on other prisoners.

He denied the charge when he appeared at Dubai Criminal Court last December.

“How could I have done that when I was in solitary confinement,” he said.

Prison waiter MBH, 28, from Bangladesh, said in his testimony that he was distributing food to prisoners from his trolley when the incident happened on August 31 last year.

“When I arrived at the defendant’s cell, he asked me to call a guard for him then threatened to have me assaulted if I didn’t, so I went,” the waiter said.

When he returned he saw that HM had pulled the food trolley near to his cell and saw him stretching his arms from between the bars and dripping blood into the tea pot.

“The police guard asked me to leave and said he would handle it,” he added.

Policeman WH, 21, said he saw the trolley tied to the defendant’s cell bars with a rope made of bedsheets.

“He was threatening that he would spray the food with his blood then cut his left hand and started dripping his blood into the tea pot,” said the policeman, who added that HM also threatened to commit suicide.

“I asked him what he wanted and he said that his issue was not with me but with the officer on duty,” said WH.