16-yr-old gets 3-month jail, fine for attack that made teenager blind

abu dhabi — A 16-year-old, who was convicted of hitting a teenager in his right eye and causing him permanent blindness, has been sentenced to three months in jail at the juvenile detention facility.

The Federal Supreme Court upheld an earlier ruling by the appeal court which handed down the sentence to the Arab boy after he was found guilty and also fined him Dh10,000.

Official court documents stated that the teen hit his colleague with a wooden stick in the right eye during a fight. The victim sustained a big wound to his eye which resulted into partial blindness.

The Court of First Instance had found the boy guilty and sentenced him to six months in the juvenile detention centre followed by deportation.

He challenged the verdict to appeal court which reduced the detention time to three months and also cancelled the deportation order. Instead of being deported, the appeal court judge ordered that the boy pay a fine of Dh10,000.

The youngster appealed to UAE’s top court. His lawyer argued that the boy used his hand to hit the victim during the scuffle between youngsters and that he didn’t mean to hurt him. The lawyer added that the statement in the prosecutors report that the boy used a stick to hit his colleague in the eye were not true.

The Supreme Court judge, however, rejected the claims maintained the appeal court verdict basing on the evidence presented by prosecutors.