in the street a few blocks from my daughter’s home. On Wednesday.
by working hard and being sure to move towards a certain goal and a very important client meeting prior to our departure. A business goal achieved!
Back in London to the shocking news of a terrorist attack a couple of blocks from my daughter’s home, which is near the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich.
Plans: work then the Chelsea Flower show.
and today we are walking about the neighbourhood, and doing some more shopping. May go to the Pergamon museum if the queues are not too long.o
Cape Town – The Emirates flight carrying SA doctor Cyril Karabus touched down in Cape Town shortly before noon on Friday.
Emirates Flight EK772 left Dubai in the early hours of the morning.
Karabus boarded the flight without incident after experiencing numerous delays.
He had been detained in the United Arab Emirates since 18 August 2012, after being convicted and sentenced in absentia for the death of a patient in 2002.
Even though he was acquitted on 21 March, his return home was delayed because he was still listed on a UAE database as a fugitive from justice.
Karabus received his passport earlier this week, but then faced another delay when his visa had the wrong dates.
He finally boarded his flight early on Friday morning. A large crowd was waiting for him at Cape Town International Airport.
- Are you there? Send us your eyewitness accounts and photos.
Transit through Stanstead airport, then travel to loft apartment in Nieu Koln.
Walk about, sussing out the area.
Meet daughter’s hipster friends in a bar.
And today I have a host of things to do, not least of which is knocking a reluctant document into shape.
Have to get 3 documents printed as well. Before 12.
Have already made 4 important phone calls.
appears to be on the mend at last, thanks to a transact pad applied to the area yesterday.
So I may be able to walk unhindered through the exhibits.
CAPE TOWN – Retired Cape Town doctor Cyril Karabus is hoping to receive his passport back on Tuesday from authorities in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Karabus has spent the past nine months in the UAE fighting a manslaughter case in connection with the death of a patient he treated several years ago.While he has been cleared of all wrongdoing he has been struggling to get his travel documents back from Abu Dhabi officials.Karbus’ lawyer Michael Bagraim said, “There’s just one thing that is outstanding at this point but we expect a signature and for him to get his papers on Tuesday.”
Karabus has spent at least R1 million in legal fees, but he will not pay a cent once he lands in South Africa.
SUPPORT FOR KARABUS
Meanwhile, Bagraim said the Islamic Medical Association has pledged its support for the retired Cape Town doctor to return home and they welcomed the support.Bagraim also said prosecutors had the option of appealing the second court's decision, but officially decided not to, closing Karabus' case for good.“The prosecutors have indicated they won’t be pursuing the matter anymore.”
(For the carnivors). Served with baked potato, roasted butternut, gem squash, minted garden peas, and gravy.
9-May-13: No reason to expect Prof. Karabus, cleared of all charges, to be free and back home. This UAE news source says he’s busy “finalising”
Let Prof. Karabus on the plane. It’s more than
enough already.
The ongoing lesson in what the people who run those oil-drenched autocratic sheikhdoms can do to innocent people continues.
This is from a United Arab Emirates newspaper, The National. Though the time now is 9:00 pm Thursday in Abu Dhabi, the item is datelined tomorrow, Friday. Why? They don't provide too many answers in that part of the world.UAE prosecutors will not further appeal Cyril Karabus acquittal | Haneen Dajani | The National | May 10, 2013 | ABU DHABI // Prosecutors will not appeal further against the acquittal of South African doctor Cyril Karabus. Two weeks ago the Appeals Court upheld a Criminal Court decision clearing Dr Karabus of the manslaughter of a three-year-old leukaemia patient who died in 2002. Prosecutors had 30 days to decide whether they would appeal again but decided against it, a judicial source said. The source said that the professor remains in the country as he is finalising procedures with the Ministry of Interior. He and his lawyers could not be reached for comment. Sarah Adel died at Sheikh Khalifa Medical Centre in 2002. A year later, after the expatriate doctor had left the country, Dr Karabus was found guilty in absentia of manslaughter. Prosecutors claimed he had failed to give the girl a vital blood transfusion, and later covered up his mistake by forging a medical report. He was cleared of both of these charges in a retrial by the Criminal Court and subsequent appeal at the Appeals Court following his arrest in August last year. Dr Karabus was arrested after landing at Dubai International Airport while in transit to South Africa, after attending his son’s wedding in Canada.
An interesting journalistic turn of phrase, no?: “he is finalising procedures with the Ministry of Interior”.
In reality, Prof. Karabus' rights have been under systematic and cynical abuse from the start of his scandalous treatment at the hands of officials in the thoroughly non-democratic Dubai and Abu Dhabi from the time of his seizure at Dubai airport in August until today.We have been closely following (see these posts) the outrageous things that have been done to Prof. Karabus since August. Reports these past two weeks in the South Africa media (for instance "Lack of passport stamp stalls Karabus' freedom" on May 6; "Karabus might get passport at weekend" on May 2; "Karabus passport wait not over" on April 30) describe how the 78 year-old retired paediatric oncologist has been pathetically left to beseech the UAE authorities to hand back to him the passport they imperiously seized nine months ago when the Kafaesque nightmare to which he has been subjected began.We're not connected to South Africa in any particular way. But we wish someone there would take a look at our post of a week ago and take the necessary steps: "2-May-13: The scandalous abuse of Prof. Karabus must end today. A practical suggestion for how"...We have an uninvited suggestion. In view of the thoroughly disgraceful – we would say scandalous – way he has been treated from the outset by the authorities in the UAE, the government of South Africa should immediately, today, appoint Prof. Cyril Karabus as one of its diplomatic representatives. It should then immediately, today, issue him with a diplomatic passport, deliver it to him by courier or via the numerous South African consular officials posted in the UAE, and have a cluster of determined senior diplomatic representatives in the UAE accompany him to the Emirates/Qantas check in counter at Dubai airport, where a complementary upgrade to first class should be waiting for him. And if making him a diplomat causes problems, then just issue him with a fresh SA passport, but let it be today. And if the flights to South Africa are full, then just fly him out of that place to anywhere. May we suggest some of our South African readers adopt this and pass it along to the people who can make it happen today? Here are some contact details… [more]
At this point, the failure of Prof. Karabus’ government to take meaningfully active steps on his behalf is beyond comprehension.
UPDATE 11:00 pm Thursday: A South African news report published tonight, “Government calls for Karabus’s return”, quotes the following close-to-but-not-quite-forthright contribution by an official spokesperson for SA’s Department of International Relations:
“It is time to allow South African doctor Cyril Karabus to return home from Abu Dhabi… Whilst respecting the sovereignty of the UAE… the South African government believes that the matter must be brought to a speedy conclusion, so that the professor can finally be reunited with his family…” [SAPA]
Without intending to cast aspersions on any innocent parties, what precisely is it about the conduct of the undemocratic, thoroughly autocratic UAE in this sordid affair that justifies their sovereignty being respected? Even by reference to their own legal system, the UAE’s ruling elite have for months contemptuously trampled all over Prof. Karabus’ human and legal rights, and are continuing to do so at this moment.
