Dubai Court of Appeal to rule on bomb belt woman next month

In March, Zulfiya Hamraeva was sentenced to seven years in jail by the Dubai Criminal Court after she threatened to blow up the Public Prosecution building with a bomb belt.

A still from security footage of the incident in Dubai’s public prosecution building.

DUBAI // A woman who threatened to blow up the public prosecution building with a bomb belt will hear if the appeal against her sentence is successful next month.

In March, Zulfiya Hamraeva, 33, from Uzbekistan, was sentenced to seven years in jail by the Dubai Criminal Court.

The Court of Appeal will deliver its final verdict on the sentence on September 3.

The woman’s accomplice, Emirati M Y, 28, who was jailed for two years for aiding and abetting Ms Hamraeva by making the device, has also appealed.

Muna Al Khaja, Ms Hamraeva’s lawyer, asked that her client be acquitted.

She said Hamraeva did not mean to cause harm to anyone, but only wanted to draw attention to a paternity dispute concerning her son.

“She was under emotional stress at that time,” said Ms Al Khaja.

Eisa bin Hayder, representing M Y, told the court on Wednesday that evidence against his client was unreliable.

Mr bin Hayder said there were a series of text messages from Hamraeva to M Y and his family, in which she threatened to frame him.

Etisalat had not been contacted by any authority to obtain these messages, said Mr bin Hayder.

He said these messages were vital to his case and insisted his client be acquitted.

On the morning of September 1 last year, Ms Hamraeva entered the Dubai public prosecution building accompanied by her son, the court heard.

She walked up to the reception and opened her abaya to reveal what she claimed was a bomb belt.

She said she would detonate it unless a paternity test was carried out to prove that an Emirati man was the father of her son.

After nearly 14 hours of negotiations, she was taken into custody and the bomb belt was later found to be an elaborate fake.

J S A, the alleged father of her son, said Ms Hamraeva claimed she was pregnant by him 10 days after meeting her in 2003. She filed two cases against him in Ajman and Sharjah but lost them both.