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Prisoner's plea turned down in sodomy case

Court records show that Omar Al Watani, along with his prison inmates Jaber Al Haddad, Khalil Jassim and Ibrahim Hassan, was accused of sodomising another man, HS, in their prison cell after threatening to beat him up and stripping him.

The five inmates were serving prison terms in separate cases, according to court sources.

The four inmates took turns to sodomise the victim on his first day in prison, according to witnesses.

The prosecution referred the accused to the Fujairah Shariah Criminal Court to be sentenced as per Shariah Law and the Penal Code.

On October 10, 2004, the Fujairah Court of First Instance sentenced them to five years in jail.

The accused, excluding Al Watani, appealed against the ruling individually at the Fujairah Court of Appeal which on December 27, 2004, reduced the prison sentence for one of them, Khalil Jassim, to two years and rejected the other petitions.

On January 3 last year, Al Watani filed his petition from his prison cell to the Chief Justice of the Federal Supreme Court.

The Chief Justice appointed a lawyer to represent the appellant. His appeal was rejected in April.

The appellant contested the verdict on the grounds that there was no concrete evidence that he had committed the crime.

He also claimed that his arrest was illegal as it was based on false testimony.

Based on the investigation results and witness accounts as well as the proceedings of the lower court, the apex court dismissed the appeal on July 3 and ordered the appellant to pay the court fees.

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