Dubai court rejects early release bid of Uzbek who killed his brother

With the help of a friend, the Uzbek drugged his brother and then stabbed him once in the heart over a financial dispute, disposing of his body in Ajman afterwards.

DUBAI // An early release application from an Uzbek who was jailed for life for killing his brother in 2007 was rejected by the Criminal Court on Thursday.

The 21-year-old, with the help of a friend, drugged his brother, A A, then stabbed him in the heart over a financial dispute.

Both men applied for early release after obtaining a waiver from the victim’s family.

Uzbek S Z started plotted with his compatriot B A to kill his brother in late 2006. At first he tried to kill the brother by putting drugs in his drink and trying to get him to overdose, but this failed.

Two weeks later, the pair again put drugs in his drink and, when the brother went to sleep in his room, B A restrained him while S Z stabbed him with a kitchen knife in the heart.

The Uzbek said in his confession to prosecutors that he and his accomplice left his brother moaning in his room, where he bled to death. The two then wrapped A A’s body in a blanket and threw it away in Ajman.

The Uzbek then went to a Russian friend, identified as R Z, and told him about the murder. He said he cried when he told R Z that he had killed his own brother but shortly afterwards the pair met up with a Russian woman, N K, and they both had sex with her.

Prosecutors charged S Z with drugging his victim, stabbing him once in the heart and leaving him to die in his bedroom. B A was charged with aiding and abetting.

The Uzbek was also charged with having consensual sex outside wedlock just after the murder, while R Z faced the same charge.

S Z was convicted of the premeditated murder of his brother over financial and social disputes and was sentenced to life in jail, which amounts to 25 years under UAE law.

Accomplice B A was also given life in jail for aiding and abetting a murder.

R Z, 27, was sentenced to one year for failing to report the murder and was referred, along with the woman, to the Court of Misdemeanours to face the charge of having consensual sex outside wedlock. A verdict for this charge was not available.

S Z and B A will now remain in jail to complete their terms.