Bar fight man used ‘dated report’ to sue

Three defendants say injury they allegedly inflicted was actually caused years earlier.

Powered by automated translation

Abu Dhabi // An Emirati who is suing three men for causing a permanent injury during a bar fight presented an old medical report while trying to prove the damage, a defence lawyer said yesterday.

H?L, an American, B?R, a Briton, and M?N, who is Lebanese, appeared before the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance charged with hitting the man and shattering part of his cheekbone.

Abdulraouf Abdulqader, H?L’s lawyer, presented documents that dated the injury to 2001 when a support was screwed into a cheekbone, and then removed in 2006.

“That was a permanent disability and anything, however tiny, would cause the bone to shift,” Mr Abdulqader told the court.

The incident took place on January 14 in the Capital hotel’s Rock Bottom bar and the three men have been in prison since.

B?R’s brother, who was visiting from the UK, said that he got into an argument with the Emirati who butted him. The brother told B?R, who asked the Emirati why he had grown violent. B?R said the Emirati hit him with a bottle and M?N tried to grab the bottle.

The defendants said witnesses would testify that no one saw the Emirati man get hit and that he had started the fight. H?L told prosecutors he had gone to the police station to translate for B?R but was detained. The judges denied bail for all three men and adjourned the case until March 6.

hhassan@thenational.ae