Man who murdered another during Dubai riot has sentence upheld

MAn sentenced to five years in prison for stabbing another man to death during a riot in Naif has his sentence upheld on appeal.

DUBAI // A man who murdered another during a riot involving more than 200 people at the Jamal Abdul Nassir Square in Naif has had his five-year jail term upheld by the Appeals Court.

ZM, 34, from Azerbaijan, will be deported after completing his term.

Prosecutors said the fight on December 13 last year had been pre-arranged between a group of men from Azerbaijan and another group from Tajikistan, and was particularly vicious.

“I saw them use everything around them as weapons,” recalled the Egyptian waiter MM, 31, who was working in a nearby restaurant. “One used a wooden ladder to hit another man while others used rubbish bins.”

During the fight, ZM stabbed a man from the rival gang to death.

As he was running away he jumped in front of the car of AK, 33, from Rwanda. “He climbed on my car, smashed the front windscreen then fled,” the driver recalled, adding that the man had left drops of blood all over his car.

When the murderer’s family found out what he had done, they contacted MP, 39, a housewife from Azerbaijan. “They asked me to help his so I advised him to surrender to police then accompanied him to the Naif police station,” said the housewife.

Police traced the murder weapon, a knife, to ZM’s home.

At his original trial at the Criminal Court ZM denied a charge of murder.