Professor Cyril Karabus is demanding R2m in damages from the Canadian firm which hired him to work in the UAE.
|||Cape Town - Professor Cyril Karabus is demanding R2 million in damages from the Canadian company which hired him to work in the United Arab Emirates in 2002.
Karabus’s lawyer, Michael Bagraim, alleges InterHealth Canada failed in their legal “duty of care” to Karabus.
The company was allegedly informed of criminal charges brought against Karabus and his eventual conviction in absentia in a UAE court in 2003.
In spite of this, InterHealth failed to contact him. Furthermore, the firm allegedly refused to come to his aid when Karabus requested legal assistance after his arrest at Dubai airport last year.
While being in the employ of InterHealth Canada, Karabus, a retired paediatric oncologist from Cape Town, treated a three-year-old leukaemia patient at Sheik Khalifa Medical Centre in Abu Dhabi. The patient died while under his care.
Without Karabus’s knowledge, the girl’s parents brought charges against him after he had returned to South Africa. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to three years and six months in prison in absentia by a UAE court. Karabus was arrested in August last year while in transit at Dubai airport. At the time, he was en route to South Africa.
Bagraim said Karabus’s arrest resulted directly from InterHealth Canada’s failure to liaise with their former employee after he was convicted. The company was in breach of Canadian law in doing so, he said.
The Cape Argus sent queries to InterHealth Canada’s head office in Toronto, but had not received a response at the time of going to print on Wednesday night.
Karabus could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
daneel.knoetze@inl.co.za
Cape Argus