Bomb belt woman should be freed as it was a cry for help, lawyer tells Dubai appeal court

DUBAI // The lawyer of a woman sentenced to seven years for threatening to blow up the Public Prosecution building with a bomb belt has asked that her client be acquitted and described the incident as a cry for help.

“She did not mean to harm anyone, she just wanted to get the attention of officials to help her,” Muna Al Khaja said at Dubai Court of Appeal on Wednesday.

Zulfiya Hamraeva, 33, from Uzbekistan, and Emirati M Y, 28, who was sentenced to two years for aiding and abetting her by making the device, were both appealing against their sentences.

The Emirati’s lawyer, Eisa bin Hayder, told the court that the main evidence to prove his innocence is with Etisalat.

“I requested that the Criminal Court contact Etisalat and seek a list of messages and calls made by Zulfiya to my client, his wife and sister, in which she threatened to frame him,” said the lawyer.

“This is clearly an evidence of innocence but the court ignored my request and I hope that your honourable court won’t do the same.”

After this statement, the court asked the lawyer for the mobile phone numbers of the client, his wife and sister.

At midday on September 1 last year, Hamraeva walked up to the reception desk of the prosecution building accompanied by her son and opened her abaya to reveal the bomb belt.

She claimed her son was the result of an affair with an Emirati and threatened to detonate explosives unless a paternity test was carried out. After nearly 14 hours of negotiations, she was taken into custody and the bomb belt was later found to be an elaborate fake.

The alleged father of the child, J S A, said he met Hamraeva in 2003 and, 10 days later, she claimed she was pregnant by him.

She filed a case against the Emirati in Ajman, to prove his paternity, but she lost and was jailed for a month.

Then, in 2007, she filed another case in Sharjah but the court refused to hear her based on the earlier Ajman ruling.

J S A said that, on August 10, Hamraeva had sent him a picture of the explosive belt but he did not take her threats seriously.

salamir@thenational.ae

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How to play the stock market recovery in 2021?

If you are looking to build your long-term wealth in 2021 and beyond, the stock market is still the best place to do it as equities powered on despite the pandemic.

Investing in individual stocks is not for everyone and most private investors should stick to mutual funds and ETFs, but there are some thrilling opportunities for those who understand the risks.

Peter Garnry, head of equity strategy at Saxo Bank, says the 20 best-performing US and European stocks have delivered an average return year-to-date of 148 per cent, measured in local currency terms.

Online marketplace Etsy was the best performer with a return of 330.6 per cent, followed by communications software company Sinch (315.4 per cent), online supermarket HelloFresh (232.8 per cent) and fuel cells specialist NEL (191.7 per cent).

Mr Garnry says digital companies benefited from the lockdown, while green energy firms flew as efforts to combat climate change were ramped up, helped in part by the European Union’s green deal.

Electric car company Tesla would be on the list if it had been part of the S&P 500 Index, but it only joined on December 21. “Tesla has become one of the most valuable companies in the world this year as demand for electric vehicles has grown dramatically,” Mr Garnry says.

By contrast, the 20 worst-performing European stocks fell 54 per cent on average, with European banks hit by the economic fallout from the pandemic, while cruise liners and airline stocks suffered due to travel restrictions.

As demand for energy fell, the oil and gas industry had a tough year, too.

Mr Garnry says the biggest story this year was the “absolute crunch” in so-called value stocks, companies that trade at low valuations compared to their earnings and growth potential.

He says they are “heavily tilted towards financials, miners, energy, utilities and industrials, which have all been hit hard by the Covid-19 pandemic”. “The last year saw these cheap stocks become cheaper and expensive stocks have become more expensive.”

This has triggered excited talk about the “great value rotation” but Mr Garnry remains sceptical. “We need to see a breakout of interest rates combined with higher inflation before we join the crowd.”

Always remember that past performance is not a guarantee of future returns. Last year’s winners often turn out to be this year’s losers, and vice-versa.