By Daily Mail (World News) | Created at 2024-10-29 18:16:19 | Updated at 2024-11-01 06:39:19
1 decade ago
- Father and mistress charged with with torturing and imprisoning the girl and her sister
- Mistress admits to using hot irons to punish girls for being 'disobedient'
- Couple used metal bars and wires to systematically torture two daughters
- Police found stun guns and sticks in the flat where the children were abandoned
Published: 19:57 BST, 7 November 2012 | Updated: 20:30 BST, 7 November 2012
An eight-year-old girl who died after being tortured with stun guns and hot irons was forced to eat her own faeces after her father and his mistress left her to starve in a locked toilet, a Dubai court heard.
Wadeema al Sherawi had been deprived of food and was locked up as punishment for being 'naughty' on the night she died - and in desperation, she ate her own waste before vomiting as a result.
Her father Hamad Saoud al Sherawi, 29, and his mistress Al Anood al Ameri, 27, have been charged with torturing and imprisoning Wadeema and her seven-year-old sister Mira, killing Wadeema and burying her illegally.
A Dubai court heard how a father and his mistress tortured and abused the man's daughters and left them to starve
The Emirati couple are said to have beaten the girls with electrical wires and metal bars, poured boiling water on them and burned them with hot irons and cigarettes.
A policeman told Dubai Court of First Instance that Wadeema and Mira - who survived the abuse but was left with a permanent disability - were often left unfed and sometimes ate their own faeces.
Emirati police officer Essam Obaid, 35, told the court: 'The girl and her younger sister were left unfed in the flat.
'On the night [Wadeema] died, she vomited a lot because she ate her own faeces.
'She and her sister used to eat mouldy food and sometimes their own faeces.'
'They left her until 5am in the toilet and when they went to check on her, she was dead. She vomited because she ate her own excrement.'
A second witness in the trial, police corporal Mubarak Ahmed Taleb, 34, said the studio apartment where the couple lived with the two girls was filthy and 'not fit for humans to live in'.
He told the court it reeked of stale urine: 'It smelled really bad and was dirty. There was only one bed and the furniture was turned upside down. The girls' clothes stank and there was mess everywhere.
'The fridge was full of food which was out of date. No one could live in it.'
He said when his investigation team searched the flat, they found two irons with brown marks on them and said: 'They had used them to burn the girls.'
He added they found some of the implements of torture, including metal bars, sticks and stun guns.
Al Sherawi and Al Ameri, who have just had a baby boy called Saoud while being held separately in captivity, stood in court while judge Maher Salameh heard the case against them.
Al Ameri clutched her sleeping newborn baby to her chest wrapped in a blue checked blanket.
The pair were arrested after the girls' uncle visited the flat in International City, Dubai, and was told by Mira of the abuse.
Al Sherawi and his mistress have been charged with torturing and imprisoning Wadeema and her seven-year-old sister Mira, and killing and burying Wadeema
He initially blamed both of them for Wadeema's death but later changed his story, saying Al Sherawi was 'a great father who loved his children'.
Al Sherawi has denied all the charges and only admits burying Wadeema in the desert while his mistress has pleaded guilty to all the allegations.
Mr Obaid said today: 'When I questioned Al Anood, she claimed she saw Wadeema vomiting heavily and was very sick that evening so she called Hamad and asked him to come to the flat.
'They left her until 5am in the toilet and when they went to check on her, she was dead. She vomited because she ate her own excrement.
'Al Anood admitted heating the irons and torturing the girls. She said Wadeema was tortured because she did not listen and was disobedient.'
The judge said: 'Was there no other way she could teach her children?'
Mr Obaid said Al Anood told him they had washed and dressed Wadeema before burying her in the desert.
He said he had not interviewed Mira. The little girl gave evidence in court yesterday but after Al Sherawi, who was clean-shaven for the first time in the trial, refused to carry on with proceedings unless reporters were banned, the trial was heard in chambers.
Wadeema's body was found in June but was so badly decomposed, forensic experts could not tell how she had died.
The girls' natural mother Salma Obaid had to give them up in November 2011 after losing custody and had not seen them for six months when Wadeema died.
She married Al Sherawi in 2002 and divorced him in 2006. She previously told the court she tried to convince him to let her see the girls but was forbidden contact with them.
A forensics expert said Mira had been lucky not to die from her injuries. The case was adjourned until November 25.
