Man smothered woman, dumped body, court told

A Kenyan man is accused of killing her during a quarrel, then hiding the corpse in a sewage hole.

DUBAI // A quarrel led to the death of a Chinese woman at the hands of her Kenyan friend last year, a court heard yesterday.

The victim's body was found six days after she was smothered to death and dumped in a sewage hole near Maktoum Airport, prosecutors told the court.

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The Kenyan administrative officer W?O, 29, was charged at the Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance with the premeditated murder of J?X, and is facing the death penalty.

W?O denied the charges in court yesterday.

On August 19, a missing persons report was filed at the Rashidiya police station by one of J?X's friends, records show. The woman told police J?X was last seen leaving her home to meet with a Chinese friend.

A second lieutenant at the Dubai Police criminal investigations department told prosecutors that inquiries led them to believe she had gone to meet with W?O.

"We called W?O, who came on August 22 with another Chinese woman to the police station who seemed nervous and scared," the officer said. "The woman said that she was with W?O all day and that they both met the victim and drove her around before she left them."

W?O's car was left in police custody

After more investigation, he was called back to the station.

"The suspect confessed to us that he killed the woman after a quarrel errupted over thier relationship. He said that the woman threatened him, so he smothered her to death, then drove out to the desert and dumped her body in a sewage hole," the officer said.

W?O led police to the location.

"We found the body inside a sewer located 50 metres off the Dubai Bypass. The body suffered postmortem breaks and bruises, but the cause of death was suffocation," a forensic expert reported.

The court will reconvene on August 7.