After the Court of Cassation revoked the acquittal verdict of Karam Bazi killer of wife Roula Yacub (https://goo.gl/3yRbcg), the first hearing was held yesterday at the office of the president of the Court of Criminal Justice, Judge Suheir Harakeh, in the presence of the victim’s mother and the convict. During the session, Bazi denied beating his wife to death back in July 2013, claiming that he punched her twice but did not beat her. He maintained having what he termed as ‘good relationship’ with his wife, but that he hit her often. “We clashed once or twice only during our life together,” he alleged. Three or four days before the incident, he recounted, they had an argument which forced him to hit his wife lightly on her back and right arm using a mopping stick, which explains the bruises on the body of his ‘soft-skinned’ wife, as he put it. The wife, according to the husband, was breastfeeding their girl in the room when she fainted, and he had to carry her to hospital with the help of some people. He returned home to bring some stuff, and in the meantime, called his brothers and mother in law and told his children that their mother was in the hospital. He charged that the bruises on her body were the result of carrying her to the car to transfer her to hospital. The Court hearing was adjourned to November 13 to hear the testimonies of four witnesses. (Al Mustaqbal, June 27, 2019)