Professor Cyril Karabus says he is going to sue the United Arab Emirates and the hospital group that employed him there.
|||Cape Town - Professor Cyril Karabus says he is going to sue the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the hospital group that employed him there.
Karabus, a leading South African paediatric oncologist who was arrested in the UAE and held for nine months on what has been described as spurious forgery and manslaughter charges, returned to South Africa last month to the joy of a growing group of supporters, after being released by the UAE authorities.
The charges followed the cancer death of a girl, Sara Al Ajaily, who was his patient while he was working as a locum at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City in 2002.
He was arrested at the airport in Dubai last September while on his way home from Canada.
His lawyer, Michael Bagraim, confirmed on Tuesday that Karabus was suing the UAE and the Canadian hospital group to which the Sheikh Khalifa Medical City hospital in the UAE belonged.
“We are still waiting for legal advice. I have spoken with a group of attorneys in Canada about suing the hospital group and we have an appointment to see lawyers here in Cape Town about suing the UAE,” he said.
“I am no expert in that area of the law, so it is important to speak to the experts who know how to take the matter further.
“Professor Karabus is relishing the prospect of suing. He did not come home relieved, he came home angry. And he still carries this anger within himself.
“It is going to take time for him to come right and get rid of that anger.
“The trauma has been enormous and it is going to take a lot of effort from the whole Karabus family to work it all out,” Bagraim said.
“After all, there was a time when we did not think he was going to come home. He did not think he was going to come home.
“There was a time when we did not even know where he was. That sort of trauma is tough. It was there even though he himself did not think so.”
Bagraim said another inescapable fact was that the episode had cost Karabus R2 million, another loss he had to consider.
Cape Argus