Qatar court finds US couple guilty of daughter's murder

An American couple accused of starving their adopted daughter to death has been found guilty and sentenced to three years each in prison.

The court also issued a fine of $4,120 on Thursday.

The verdict by Judge Abdullah al-Emady concludes a controversial case that saw Matthew and Grace Huang from Los Angeles, California, jailed for a year before being allowed to give evidence in their defence.

They were granted bail in November, but ordered not to leave the country.

The couple's defence team vowed to appeal the verdict.

"Our case highlights Qatar’s deficiencies," the Huangs said in a statement after meeting with UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul, in January.

"We are innocent and living through a nightmare."

The couple was arrested in the capital Doha in January 2013 after the death of their nine-year-old daughter, Gloria, who was adopted from Ghana. The Huangs have two other children, also adopted from Africa.

The children were allowed to leave Qatar after several months, and are now living with family back in the United States.

Qatari prosecutors accused the couple of starving Gloria to death with the intent of selling her organs.

The charge of murder comes with a potential death sentence in Qatar, though there has been an effective moratorium on executions for the last 10 years.

Gloria's death certificate, issued by Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health, listed the causes of death as "cachexia and dehydration".

Lawyers for the Huangs accused the prosecutor of fabricating evidence from the autopsy, and pressed the attorney general's office to launch an investigation. No announcement has been made on whether that is under way.

The US State Department made its first public comments on the case on Wednesday, saying it had urged the government of Qatar to ensure a fair, transparent, and expeditious trial.

"We have been concerned by indications that not all of the evidence was being weighed by the court and that cultural misunderstandings may have been leading to an unfair trial," deputy spokesperson Marie Harf said.

The Huang family moved to Doha in 2012. Matthew is an engineer who was working on a water purification project related to the 2022 football World Cup, which will be hosted in Qatar.

Source: Al Jazeera