A doctor, sentenced to life in prison in Dubai, says Cyril Karabus’ case is no surprise.
|||Cape Town - An Austrian doctor, last year sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment in Dubai for the “mercy killing” of a patient, says he is not surprised by what is happening to local doctor Cyril Karabus.
Eugen Adelsmayr, the former head of the surgical intensive care unit at the Rashid Hospital Trauma Centre in Dubai, has also tried to help Karabus.
A retired paediatric oncologist, Karabus, 77, has been held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for more than six months for the death of a patient after being sentenced to three years in jail in absentia.
About four months ago Adelsmayr was sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in Dubai for allegedly switching off a patient’s life-support machine in February 2009, increasing the patient’s morphine dose and ordering that the patient not be resuscitated.
However, he was reportedly not on duty that night.
Roughly a month before being sentenced and after appearing in court a few times, Adelsmayr left for Austria for his wife’s funeral, where he has remained.
On Thursday, in a Facebook conversation, Adelsmayr told the Cape Times his case had been “based on a forged report from the Dubai Health Authority”. He said it appeared that in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, the motto “guilty until proven innocent” was believed.
“I forwarded Dr Karabus’s case to an Austrian delegate to the European Parliament to show that there are more cases like mine.
Maybe I can help him a bit this way,” he said.
“Political pressure might help to get Dr Karabus out of there and I think the emphasis should be on his heart problem,” Adelsmayr said, referring to a heart condition Karabus has.
The matter against Karabus was meant to have proceeded on Wednesday, but a medical committee tasked with probing the case failed to provide its report.
On Thursday Adelsmayr cautioned: “Dr Karabus should not rely too much on the committee’s report. It had cleared me but the court simply ignored it.”
According to the online version of The National, a publication in the Middle East, it said Adelsmayr was sentenced to life imprisonment on October 20 last year for premeditated murder relating to patient Ghulam Mohammed’s death.
Another doctor from India, working with Adelsmayr at the time, was acquitted.
The National said Adelsmayr was sentenced for switching off Mohammed’s life-support machine, increasing his morphine dose - causing him to have a fatal heart attack - and ordering medical staff not to resuscitate Mohammed.
In response, Adelsmayr had told The National the verdict had been based on the incorrect translation of a medical report into the matter, which exonerated him.
In Karabus’s case, medical documents also became a focal point.
The case against Karabus had been delayed because of lost medical documents which Karabus’s defence believes would exonerate him.
Karabus was arrested while in transit through Dubai in August and released on bail in October.
He had been tried in absentia and convicted of man-slaughter and falsifying documents after the death of a three-year-old in 2002 at the Sheikh Khalifa Medical Centre, Abu Dhabi, where he had been working as a locum.
The case was postponed to March 20.
caryn.dolley@inl.co.za
Cape Times