A man and his wife tortured and starved his mother for three months until she died in Dubai, the criminal court was told.
The Indian couple lived with the husband’s mother, in her 50s, in their flat in Al Qusais, where they would allegedly beat and burn her.
The couple were reported to police by their neighbour, who found the mother collapsed in the communal laundry room in October.
"I spotted the old woman lying on the floor of the laundry room in our building. She was extremely skinny and in pain and she had burns on both her legs," said their Indian neighbour.
Their neighbour said she asked the mother what happened but the woman panicked and asked to be taken back to her flat.
"I immediately headed to the security guard and told him about the woman but, when we returned to the laundry room, she was gone," said the neighbour.
The pair went door-to-door looking for the woman until they found her at the defendants' flat on the third floor.
"We knocked and, when the couple opened the door, the mother was lying in pain on the floor of their living room," said the neighbour, who called for an ambulance.
Paramedics took the victim to Rashid Hospital.
"Her son did not move to help. He was very much indifferent about her pain and multiple injuries," said one of the paramedics, from Kenya.
The paramedic said the man did not identify himself as her son until he was asked.
"He told us her burns were self-inflicted by hot water then stood aside," the paramedic said.
Doctors called police after suspecting the woman's injuries were caused by various forms of torture and that she had been starved until she weighed only 29kg.
"She had scratches on her face and neck, first and second degree burns on 10 per cent of her body, multiple fractures in different parts of her body and swelling in her extremities," said a doctor.
The victim never recovered and died on October 31 last year.
Police investigations confirmed that the mother had been tortured between July and October.
The autopsy report revealed that the burns on the woman's legs were not caused by hot water, rather by an iron.
At the time of her death, the woman had 11 fractured ribs, a shoulder blade fracture and vertebra fracture as well as lens dislocation in both her eyes.
Her son, 29, and his wife, 28, were charged with physical assault leading to death.
The pair denied the charge in court on Wednesday.
The next hearing was scheduled for July 3.
