British editor in UAE sentenced to 10-year jail for killing wife

On Sunday, a British editor in Dubai was sentenced to 10 years in prison for slaying his wife to death with a hammer. In 2017, Francis Matthew, the former editor of the English-language Gulf News faced the possibility of the death penalty for killing his wife Jane Matthew. He was there with Gulf News from 1995-2005 and later became an editor-at-large at the newspaper. He associated with the newspaper at the time of the killing, though the Gulf News now refers to him as a former employee.

The accused and his lawyer were not present in the Dubai Court of the First Instance for the verdict read by Judge Fahad al-Shamsi, which is common in courts in the United Arab Emirates. Matthew's lawyer, Ali al-Shamsi, said he would appeal the sentence.

Jane Matthew's brother was present in court for the verdict, but declined to immediately talk to journalists.

"Our family has been saddened by the sentence given to Francis Matthew, Jane's killer. We believe the facts clearly demonstrate that this crime was a deliberate act," Peter Manning told The Associated Press in a written statement.

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Dubai Police was called to Francis's three-bedroom villa in Dubai’s Jumeirah neighborhood on July 4. The police found  his wife of over 30 years dead, and the editor told them robbers had broken into the home and killed her.
 
In an investigation, Francis told Police that his wife had grown angry with him because they were in debt and needed to move. He told, "I got angry with her when she called me a 'loser' and told me "I should provide financially," according to police.

Francis told police his wife pushed him during the argument. According to the Police report, he then got a hammer, followed her into the bedroom and struck her twice in the head, killing her. The next morning, he pretended like a robbery took place at the house and went to work like nothing had happened, throwing the hammer in a nearby trash can, police said.

Jane Matthew's brother said, the sequence of events proved the killing was calculated. "In the defendant's own version of events, he collected the murder weapon, a hammer, in the kitchen and carried it down two corridors of the house to the bedroom. There was time for him to consider his actions."

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