Father gets 8 years for beating girl to death

DAMMAM — The Summary Court in Riyadh has sentenced a Saudi man to eight years in prison and 700 lashes for beating his 7-year-daughter Yara to death. Saeed Al-Qahtani, lawyer of the dead girl's mother, told Al-Watan daily that the discretionary verdict against the father, Mohammed Ali Al-Qahtani, was preliminary and could be appealed in 30 days. He said the mother was still entitled to her private rights, which she can claim upon the approval of the verdict by the Court of Appeals. The case took place in Riyadh last year. The mother, who lives in Dammam, said she was separated from her ex-husband over irreconcilable differences and she kept her daughter with her until she was seven years old when her father took custody. She said her daughter went to Riyadh to live with her father but was not at all happy. "My ex-husband killed our daughter only three months after he took her from me," she said. The father told the investigators he did not intend to kill the girl but was only disciplining her. The mother said the father beat the girl with a hose and then with a stick on every part of her body. She said the blow that killed her was on the head. She claimed that the father beat Yara because she told him she did not love him. "He locked her in a room between Asr to Maghreb prayers. All the time she was crying and vomiting," she said. The mother said her ex-husband found the girl too weak and decided to take her to hospital but she died in the car. She said her daughter was kept in the morgue for 12 days during which she was not told of her death. The mother said medical tests proved that the father was drug-free.