ABU DHABI // One of three cousins accused of killing an Omani during a hunting trip in the desert has had his death sentence upheld, while the other two have been acquitted.
The Criminal Court had previously convicted two of the defendants, cousins N D and M D and sentenced them to death. A third cousin, H D, was cleared.
But at the Appeals Court on Tuesday only N D had his sentence upheld after the victim’s relatives took the Sharia oath of Qasama that he was the one who committed the murder.
Qasama is a way of adjudicating first-degree murder charges when there are only strong suspicions that the defendant committed the crime, yet there is not sufficient evidence.
During Qasama, the victim’s heirs are asked to swear a religious oath a total of 50 times that they believe the defendant killed the victim.
They also have the choice of reverting the Qasama back to the defendant and making them take the oath 50 times saying they did not commit it.
If they decline from either option then the case is dropped.
In an earlier session, the father of the victim repeated the Qasama oath 25 times, saying: “Allah is He, than Whom there is no other God, who knows [all things] both secret and open. The first defendant has shot my son on purpose and he died because of the shot.”
Then the brother of the victim took the oath 10 times and the second brother 15 times, reaching the required total of 50 recitations for the oath to be admitted as evidence.
The murder occurred after the trio took their Toyota Land Cruiser to a remote part of the desert.
A Toyota Hilux carrying some Omanis began chasing and throwing rocks at them. One of the Omanis also fired a pistol in the air.
The Emirati cousins fired a warning shot back at the Omanis.
However, the shot hit one of the passengers in the head, killing him instantly.
The men in the Hilux denied they had a gun but admitted to hitting the Land Cruiser with rocks.
It was only the third time the Abu Dhabi Appeals Court had ever used the Qasama oath to resolve a murder case.
hdajani@thenational.ae
