S.African doctor returns home after UAE detention

CAPE TOWN (AFP) - A South African doctor arrived home on Friday nine months after he was detained in the United Arab Emirates over the death of a cancer patient he treated more than a decade ago.

Cyril Karabus, a paediatric oncologist, was detained last August while in transit through Dubai after having been sentenced in absentia in 2003 for the death of a three-year-old leukaemia patient while briefly working in Abu Dhabi.

In March, he was acquitted of manslaughter and forgery relating to the case, and won a subsequent appeal by UAE prosecutors against the acquittal.

The 78-year-old was welcomed by his family and South Africa's deputy foreign minister to great festivities as a band played and a crowd cheered in the international arrivals hall at Cape Town International Airport.

Supporters dressed in "Welcome home Cyril Karabus" t-shirts held balloons and posters.

Amid the saga to have Karabus freed, which required the involvement of South African authorities, the World Medical Association issued a cautionary advisory notice to doctors thinking of working in the UAE.

Giving thanks for the support he received, Karabus said after he landed that "it's nice to be home".

"I'm very pleased that it's all over," he said.

"It was dreadful -- the ups and downs -- when you thought things were going well and then a day or two later, suddenly something happened and they were going down again. So it was very upsetting."

After his August arrest, Karabus was imprisoned before being released on bail in October but had to stay in the Gulf nation for a fresh court process which faced multiple delays.

He was finally acquitted in March, after a medical panel said there was no basis to the manslaughter charges.

His return to South Africa was then further delayed following red-tape wrangles over the return of his passport and a glitch with an exit visa.

Deputy foreign minister Marius Fransman told AFP that the government had issued a demarche in January to protest the case, as part of high level negotiations behind the scenes.

However Fransman said he believed there would be no damage to ties between the two countries, saying that some of the UAE's royal family had stepped in to help with the case.

"We believe that the bilateral relations will continue." The UAE and South Africa could, he said, "have a respectful relation under a very difficult issues".