The murderer and rapist of the 8-year-old Jordanian boy Obaida, who was sentenced to be executed by Dubai Criminal First Instance Court failed to appear before the Appeals Court on Sunday.
Meanwhile, court-appointed defence lawyer Omran Darwish, who represented the convict Nidal Isa, 48, before the First Instance Court, asked the Appeals Court to excuse him as he had done his duty.
Later, the Appeals Court appointed Emirati lawyer Ali Musabbah Dhahi to defend the convict.
According to the rules it is mandatory that a convict who has been sentenced to death to be present to appeal the sentence.
Lawyer Dhahi requested the Appeals Court for a copy of the case’s file and the next hearing is scheduled for October 23.
Although, Nidal Isa denied kidnapping, raping and killing the boy at the First Instance Court, the jury was fully convinced that he committed the crimes.
The jury also did not consider the murderer’s claim that he was suffering from a mental illness at the time of the crime.
The victim’s family had was in tears on hearing the verdict and had lauded the justice in the UAE.
The victim was kidnapped on May 20, while he was outside his father’s garage in Sharjah Industrial area.
Nidal promised to buy him a scooter and drove him to Al Mamzar area.
Nidal raped the boy, then he suffocated him with a ‘ghutra’ (head scarf) that was in the car when the boy threatened to tell his father.
The father, who thought that his son went home as he had asked him to, was shocked to know from the mother that the boy had not reached home.
The father immediately started searching with some relatives and he suspected that his client Nidal Isa knows whereabouts the son.
He went to Nidal’s house searching for the boy, but the later offered him coffee and extended readiness to help searching the boy, while the child was lying dead in his car at the time.
The father refused the offer and left Nidal. As he got down the building, he peeped through the tinted glass of Nidal’s car, but could not see anything.
Two days later, a municipality worker spotted the body of the boy off the road and informed his senior who called the police.
Nidal was arrested from his brother’s house in Dubai.
His car was seized by police patrol from Al Warqa. A man also spotted Nidal getting of the car and throwing some of the boy’s belongings off the same street.