Dubai police tortured man to death, former inmate says

Thirteen officers are charged with using excessive force against three men as they investigated a murder and kidnapping last year.

DUBAI // Two former inmates told prosecutors they witnessed the beating to death of a Pakistani man at the hands of 13 police officers last year, documents show.
They say members of the Dubai Police Criminal Investigation Department tortured the three of them in the Naif police station while questioning them about the kidnapping and murder of another Pakistani man who disappeared in May 2010 and whose body was found in Sharjah.
The 13 officers - a lieutenant colonel, six lieutenants and six lower-ranking officers - have denied the charges to prosecutors. The allegations against them include torture and unlawful detention of BK, who died, and two other men, MS and SH, as well as abuse of power, excessive use of force during interrogation, forgery and giving a false statement.
The defendants include nine Emiratis, AR, 35; MA, 30; RH, 24; AS, 26; GS, 30; BM, 25; JE, 32; RS, 24; and AH, 44. Two of the officers, KM, 31, and SA, 56, were Pakistani, and KH and SS, both 33, were Omani.
The 33-year-old MS, a Pakistani cashier, said he and BK were arrested on May 27. SH, 38, was arrested on May 28.
 
He said that in June, all three of them were severely beaten at various times. MS said he was arrested in Al Satwa area, then placed in a CID car, where he was slapped and punched in the face, abdomen and thighs. He was taken to Al Rafaa police station, then moved to Naif station.
 
Prosecutors said the officers there hit him in the groin with a metal bar and a wooden stick, then stripped him naked and sprayed his body with WD40, an anti-rust agent.
"One of them was shouting, 'If he doesn't respect the law, we beat him, and if he dies we dump his body somewhere,'" MS told prosecutors.
SH, a shop supervisor from Pakistan, said his hands were tied behind his back before he was beaten and left standing in a dark room. He said the abuse came at the hands of several different officers.
"Some of them insulted me with inappropriate words in both Arabic and Urdu," he told prosecutors.
 
The officers banged his head against the wall as they continued beating and kicking his entire body. Then they took him to Ajman, where the missing man lived, prosecutors said.
 
Both men said that as they were being moved from the interrogation room, they heard someone else being beaten. They then saw BK laying motionless on the floor of another room, face-down and wearing traditional Pakistani clothing.
 
"I saw him for nearly 10 seconds," MS testified.
 
AE, a 50-year-old forensics expert who examined BK's body, confirmed that he had suffered multiple bruises all over his body, and the cause of death was bleeding in the brain.
A senior prosecution official told The National, "When I saw the deceased's dead body, there wasn't an inch of it that didn't have a bruise."
AE said the bruises were likely caused by sticks or bars, but some of them were caused by bare hands. He added that the beating of MS caused his kidneys to fail.
 
They will appear before the Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance on May 31.
 
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