BEIRUT: State Prosecutor Samir Hammoud Monday appealed a Beirut court decision to reduce the prison term of a man who beat his wife to death.
The state-run National News Agency said Hammoud appealed a decision issued by the Beirut Criminal Court on July 14, 2016 to reduce to five years the term of Mohammad al-Nhaily, convicted of bludgeoning his wife Manal Assi to death with a pressure cooker in 2014.
Hammoud saw the decision to reduce his sentence from the death penalty to five years in prison "a mistake in explaining and implementing Article 252 of the penal code."
Article 252 allows the mitigation of sentences for crimes committed in a state of rage.
Beirut Criminal Court Judge Helene Iskandar reduced Nhaily’s sentence after taking into account what she deemed to be the extreme state of rage he purportedly experienced at the time of the murder.
Given Lebanon’s nine-month judicial year and factoring in time served, Nhaily was set to be released in little over a year’s time.
The case now moves to an appellate court. Hammoud called on the court to uphold the original death sentence for Nhaily.
In making his case, Hammoud referred to Article 549, paragraph 4 of Lebanon's penal code, which states that someone who commits intentional homicide using torture should be handed the death penalty.
He also noted that Article 189 says that an offense may be deemed intentional even if the perpetrator did not mean to kill as long as he or she had foreseen the possibility of death and thus accepted the risk.
Last week activists and human rights groups staged a protest outside Beirut’s Justice Palace in Adlieh to denounce Nhaily's sentence reduction.
Source & Link : the Daily Star
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