Wadeema's father sentenced to death for murder

A father who tortured his daughter to death is to face the firing squad.

Hamad Saod, 29, who stood trial with his lover, was found guilty at Dubai Court of First Instance on Wednesday of murdering eight-year-old Wadeema. The court sentenced him to death.

His co-accused, 27-year-old Al Anood Mohammad Al Ameri, who gave birth to a son in custody, was also found guilty of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Both defendants were cleared of a second charge of hiding Wadeema’s body, which was found buried in the desert about three months after she died.

The pair were arrested after Wadeema’s seven-year-old sister, Meyra, told a relative that she and her sibling had been physically abused for six months, including being scolded with boiling water and irons and being beaten.

Meyra said that on the night Wadeema died, Saod and Al Ameri had been torturing her big sister, who fell unconscious. The couple later carried her lifeless body out of their studio flat in International City, Dubai, and Meyra never saw her sister again.

At an earlier hearing, a police officer described conditions in the flat as “impossible for a human to live in”. He said: “We found a bar used to beat the girls and two irons used to burn and torture them. There was only one bed and that meant the girls were sleeping on floor.”

Meyra has been left with disabilities due to her abuse.

The shocking case sparked a new child law, called Wadeema’s Law, after UAE Vice-President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, decreed that more protection was needed for children to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.