Men jailed for shaving off half of fellow motorist's hair, beard and moustache in driving dispute

Two Gulf nationals were sentenced to one year in prison each by a Qatari court for shaving half the head, beard and moustache of an expatriate driver to punish him. The court in the capital Doha said the two men were guilty of attacking and humiliating the Asian driver. The driving licence of the Gulf driver will be revoked for three months, the court also ruled.

The defendants said they were forced to react after the Asian driver overtook their car in a reckless manner that almost caused them to hit the pavement of a major road in Qatar. They claimed they were driving calmly when they were almost hit by the Asian driver who wanted to move ahead of them without any signal or warning. In his declaration, the driver said that he was driving his car normally on a public road when the driver of another car signaled him to pull aside.



He said that he opted to ignore the signal and kept on driving his car. However, after being chased for some time, he decided to stop on a side road and enquire about the motives of the two people in the other car. When he stopped, he was confronted with insults from the two men who accused him of putting their lives at risk through his reckless driving. “The two defendants held me and tied me up on the back seat of my car,” the driver said. “Then, one of them took out a shaver and shaved off half of my head, beard and moustache.

“They eventually untied me and sped away in their car. I alerted the police and an investigation was launched,” he said. The two men were arrested and referred to the public prosecution for questioning before they were put on trial. They admitted they abused the victim, but insisted they wanted to teach him a lesson for putting people’s lives at risk through reckless driving. The court issued the jail sentence, but turned down other requests from the victim’s lawyer. The nationalities of the defendants and the victim were not revealed.