You are here

Victims of attacks face legal dilemma when assailants easily obtain medical reports for fake injuries

By Dana Al Emam - Nov 02,2014 - Last updated at Nov 02,2014

AMMAN — Despite his daily exposure as a doctor to examining cases of quarrels, road rage injuries, road accidents and writing medical reports when needed, Mahmoud Wahdan did not know that one day he would be a "victim" of a brawl.

The story started when a car hit the back of his in a traffic jam during Ramadan this year.

"I stopped to see the damage to my car... and suddenly a man who was sitting next to the driver of the other car started shouting at me and slapped me on the face," he told The Jordan Times, stressing that he did not fight back.

Wahdan filed a complaint against the other driver at the police department, and so did his adversary.

"The chief of the police department looked into the complaints and was able to tell that the other driver tried to take the accident as a pretext to take money from me," he said, adding that police officers solved the problem peacefully, "otherwise I would have been taken to prison".

 

The police department

 

The regular procedure for the police department that receives complaints over incidents of violence between people is to listen to and record testimonies of all the involved parties, according to Public Security Department Spokesperson Major Amer Sartawi.

The officer added that a single police station looks into quarrel cases ranging from 2 up to 20 on a daily basis, describing the number as "normal" due to the increase in population.

"Sometimes police officers help find middle ground to solve the issue," he told The Jordan Times recently, noting that if no agreement was reached, police ask the involved parties to get medical reports, then refer them to the prosecutor general's office, who then refers them to court.

"I accepted the settlement because otherwise I would get into the hassle of going to court and skipping work for some days, which would also tarnish my professional reputation," Wahdan said.

 

‘Fraud in the name of the law’

 

At this stage of the conflict, “fraud by the name of the law” starts, said advocate Ahmad Abu Ghweileh.

“There is no legislative gap in the law, but in the manner laws are implemented,” he told The Jordan Times, adding that instructions to police officers in the cases of quarrels do not allow them to detain the attacker based on the complaint of the attacked.

In order for the person who caused the quarrel or the accident to escape legal and financial consequences, he or she can cause, or claim, physical harm to themselves, accusing the other party of causing that injury. By doing so, they can obtain a medical report similar to that of the actual victim and the case would be labelled as a “brawl” rather than an attack, the advocate explained.

“Inaccurate or fake medical reports are the roots of evil in this issue, since they turn troublemakers into victims,” he said.

 

Medical reports

 

“Some medical reports are obtained unlawfully through pulling some strings,” Abu Ghweileh said, adding that most of the road accident cases he has dealt with include a party that blackmails the other with a fake medical report for the sake of money. 

Doctors should follow stricter measures in giving medical reports to those involved in quarrels and car accidents, the jurist said.

Victims, whom medical reports equate with perpetrators, tend to drop the charges against the criminals to avoid being taken into custody on the condition that the other party drops the charges as well, often after paying a sum of money to the criminal, he noted.

From his side, Basil Abu Sabha, head of the emergency department at Al Bashir Hospital, said hospitals deal with these cases “very often”.

“Doctors examine those referred from police departments and classify their cases into three categories: mild [those receive treatment and return home], intermediate [get admitted to the hospital] and intense [gets admitted to the hospital under intensive medical care],” he said.

“When the medical reports of the two sides belong to the same category, police treats the two parties equally regardless of who caused the problem, which means that the rights of one side are violated,” Abu Sabha said in a recent interview with The Jordan Times.

 

Legal responsibility 

 

Even if doctors found the “report seeker” healthy, not suffering from trauma or injuries, they cannot mention in the medical report that the patient is “free from any illness or trauma” if the patient complains of any “fabricated” pain, to avoid being sued in case future complications occur, he said.

But Wahdan, a resident surgeon, said general practitioners with modest experience are the ones to examine cases of brawls and car accidents and write the initial medical report.

“With years of experience, doctors become familiar with self-inflicted injuries that troublemakers cause to themselves to obtain medical reports,” he said, citing cases of knife-wounded shoulders and bullets in abdominal fat.

Yet sometimes it is very hard to tell if the injury is real or fabricated, he said.

The cases are then referred to a forensic pathologist who tries to determine the cause of the injury in the final medical report, which the court considers in its decision.

He added that sometimes doctors are under pressure by the “patient’s” relatives to admit him to the hospital, although the case does not require that.

“A doctor sometimes responds to such demands when he sees 20 people storming the emergency room and ready to act violently,” he said. With the frequent attacks on doctors in emergency rooms, such behaviour by doctors can be justified, according to the surgeon. 

A total of 83 cases of violence against doctors on duty were registered in 2013, according to the Jordan Medical Association.

But advocate Mohammad Faouri suggests working out a mechanism that allows doctors to submit a “second” report to the court, explaining that they wrote the first under “social pressure”.

He noted that some people with “criminal records” make a living out of these kinds of quarrels and fabricated car accidents, calling for intensifying penalties on those proven guilty.

However, he called for further engagement of forensic pathologists in the investigation process.

“Forensic doctors may sometimes prove the perpetrator’s claimed injury to be fake by comparing the time of the complaint with that of the wound, according to the wound’s condition,” he told The Jordan Times.

 

A social issue 

 

Commenting on the issue, Hussein Khuzai, associate professor of sociology at Balqa Applied University, said individuals with criminal records seek to blackmail others to make ill-gotten financial gains, calling for stricter penalties on those who behave this way.

“Up to 51 per cent of those put in jail in Jordan are repeat criminals,” he said, adding that attackers are very familiar with the law and know how to get around it.

“These people have nothing to lose,” he said, while their victims are usually concerned about their future and fear interruption to their routines; therefore they tend to drop charges against their attackers and may pay money.

He said that “improper social upbringing and the presence of a criminal in the family” are two factors that contribute to this phenomenon, highlighting poor economic conditions as a key drive for some to blackmail others.

Khuzai noted that 3 per cent of individuals in any society are naturally born with criminal traits and violent personalities.

Wahdan, according to his account, met one of these and the law did not help him. 

up
48 users have voted.


Newsletter

Get top stories and blog posts emailed to you each day.

PDF