British editor in Dubai charged with killing wife with hammer

The British editor of a Gulf newspaper has been charged with murdering his wife after he allegedly admitted having thrown a hammer at her “without intending to kill her,” according to authorities in Dubai.

Francis Matthew, 60, who worked for the Economist before going on to edit the Gulf News from 1995 to 2005 and then becoming the paper’s editor-at-large, is well known within the country’s expatriate community.

In a series of tweets, the Dubai Media Office said that Matthew had been charged and that investigations were continuing.

Matthew initially called local police and claimed that his wife had been attacked by burglars at their home in the upscale Jumeirah neighborhood, it said.

The “suspect confessed during public prosecution interrogation that he assaulted his wife and threw a hammer at her without intending to kill her.”

“Initial reports showed that death resulted from a strong blow on the head with a hard object, which raised suspicion about the husband.”

Dubai Public Prosecution has charged the husband with murder under federal penal law; investigations in the case are continuing

— Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) July 10, 2017

The office tweeted that Matthew had referred to marital issues.

The couple married in 1985 and had been living in Dubai for some 30 years. Their only son was understood to be travelling to Dubai to visit his father.

The Khaleej Times reported that Matthew told interrogators that the couple had argued over dinner.

His wife Jane, 62, went to lie down in their bedroom, where Matthews allegedly hit her on the head twice with a hammer.

Frightened by his wife’s heavy bleeding, he then took the hammer, drove some 200 meters and tried to conceal the tool in a trash can, according to prosecutors quoted by the paper.

He then went back home, took a hidden safe out and spread items around his house to support his initial claim to police that his wife had been attacked by burglars.

Matthew reportedly expressed sadness for killing his wife and said that his life was now “destroyed”.

He is said to have expressed regret in a letter to his son, saying he had lost control in anger and had never meant to kill.

Abdul Hamid Ahmad, the editor-in-chief of the Gulf News, said the newspaper was “shocked and saddened at this tragedy,” the Telegraph newspaper reported.