Men who burnt body of overdosed friend to see out jail terms

Five men each serving a year in prison for burning the body of a friend who overdosed must see out their sentences, a court has ruled.

Dubai Court of Appeal rejected the group's plea for a reduced term following their conviction for attempting to dispose of the victim's body by setting it on fire.

The five include three men from the Comoros Islands, one Emirati, and one man who has yet to be identified or arrested.

The deceased is understood to be a 19-year-old Emirati heroin addict who had recently been released from jail.

Court documents showed that the man's father had picked up the teenager from prison on November 28 last year and warned him against taking drugs.

But the following day the man disappeared to meet his five friends and, after injecting heroin, he overdosed.

Read more: Gang who burnt their friend's dead body after he overdosed are jailed

“I told him to be careful and to stay away from bad friends and drugs," his father, 52, said. "He said 'OK' and left."

During the trial, the court was told that the defendants all panicked when they realised their friend had stopped breathing.

They abandoned the teenager in his car for two days before returning to the scene and setting fire to the vehicle in an effort to cover their tracks.

“They purchased fuel from a nearby petrol station and the first three defendants — after being dropped off by the defendant at large — poured the fuel on the car and set it a blaze and left,” a police officer said in a statement. Three other cars were partially damaged by the fire.

The Appeal Court ruled that the three expatriates should be deported after serving their sentences as well as jointly paying a fine of Dh62,400 for the damage the fire caused.