Dubai court upholds life sentence of labourer who killed over loss of Dh6,000

Dubai Court of Appeal rules that Bangladeshi will serve sentence for killing of countryman who he believed had stolen his life's savings.

DUBAI // A court has upheld the life sentence meted out to a 25-year-old labourer who stabbed a man in his vital organs before locking him in his room to bleed to death.

Dubai Criminal Court convicted Bangladeshi M E with the premeditated murder of his countryman, K H, over the loss of Dh6,000 last May.

On Wednesday, the Court of Appeal upheld the sentence.

The crime was reported on June 20, 2012, by the victim’s colleagues in the Al Quoz industrial area.

He was found in a pool of blood in his room after a security guard broke a room window and entered when he failed to open the door.

Police investigations led to the arrest of M E, who was the last person seen entering the victim’s room on the morning of the murder.

Labourers told police that M E had lost Dh6,000 a few days before the murder, and accused the victim of taking it because he was the only person M E had seen opening the wooden box where the money was kept.

On June 18, K H called in sick and did not go to work for two days. He was on his bed when his killer surprised him and stabbed him in the chest.

M E kept stabbing as K H desperately tried to escape but failed and fell to the floor.

The killer locked the door from the outside and left his victim to bleed to death. His body was found by colleagues a day later.

M E fled to Sharjah, then to Al Ain before he secretly crossed into Oman with the help of five others.

R D, 29, A S, 32, B A, 26, A A, 28, all Bangladeshis, and E S, a 24-year-old Omani mechanic, were each sentenced to three months in prison. They will be deported after serving their sentence.

They were convicted of aiding and abetting the killer by hiding him and helping him to flee to Oman. None appealed against his sentence.

Emirati policeman A A M, 23, testified that the killer was arrested and extradited to the UAE with the help of the Omani authorities.

“He [M E] said in investigations that he did not mean to kill him,” said the officer.

A Bangladeshi labourer, A A A, said M E phoned him to complain about the theft of the money.

“He was very upset and crying. He told me he suspected K H because he had seen him opening the box where he kept his life savings,” A A A said.

He said he had asked around in an unsuccessful attempt to uncover the thief. He also asked the victim whether he had taken the Dh6,000, but K H denied it.

The labourer then informed the supervisor of the workers’ accommodations, who called the police and reported the theft.

“On the day of the crime, I went to the victim’s room at about 7pm, repeatedly knocked on his door, then called him. But there was no answer,” A A A said.

Some labourers tried in vain to break down the door, so they called a security guard who broke a window and jumped inside to find the victim’s blood-soaked body.

“We called police and they took 60 workers from the accommodation to investigate them,” said the labourer.

The murderer will be deported after completing his jail term.