Our law firm team succeeded in obtaining an acquittal of an accused from the Dubai Court of Appeal after the court of first instance had convicted him of violating his humanitarian duty and committing the crime of refraining from helping a woman, which caused her death.
These are cases that fall under the heading of the crime of “manslaughter.”
An Asian woman had thrown herself from the balcony of her room on the third floor, which led to her being injured. Some people gathered around her, but she refused their attempts to call an ambulance, declaring that she did not want to go to the hospital and that she wanted to go to sleep, so they helped her get up, to go to her room again.
However, the victim died hours after she reached her room again as a result of internal bleeding as a result of falling from a height.
The accused was one of those who gathered around this woman, after she fell, to check on her and help her. He also offered to call an ambulance, but she declared that she was fine and insisted on going up to her room again.
The Public Prosecution considered that the accused had abandoned his humanitarian duty to report to the police and seek help, which is what the court of first instance decided when it convicted him and punished him with imprisonment for a period of one month and a fine and ordered him to pay the legal blood money in the amount of 200 thousand dirhams.
Our office team appealed this ruling, and we were able to obtain a new judgment to overturn the objected judgment, and the court again acquitted the accused as the victim had insisted on going up to her room, and witnesses had testified to this, which is what the court concluded with the victim’s fault and the severance of the causal relationship between the accused’s action and the victim’s death.