DUBAI // A salesman has denied threatening to kill his boss, saying that he instead threatened to kill himself.
The Pakistani defendant, 26, is charged at Dubai Criminal Court with issuing death threats to his Chinese boss on April 22 at her restaurant in Al Rashidiyah if she did not hand him his passport. He was allegedly holding a knife against the woman.
“It’s not true, I’m not guilty. I didn’t threaten her, I asked for my passport and she wouldn’t give it back so I told her I would kill myself if she did not give it back to me,” said the accused in court.
The restaurant owner told prosecutors that she hired the accused about three months before the incident but several customers had complained about him and, when she fired him, he refused to leave the restaurant and insisted on continuing his work.
“We argued then he grabbed my phone and damaged it, so I called the police, who came and solved the problem and the accused promised to pay for the phone repairs and swore to officers that he won’t cause any more trouble,” said the woman, 29.
She said the man later said he didn’t have the money to pay for the repair and when she allowed him to work for it, he never did, so she reported him again to police and handed them his passport.
“He then came to the restaurant and grabbed a knife from the kitchen and threatened to kill me. He told me he knew where I lived and demanded I give him his passport,” said the woman.
In her testimony she said he came to her home and stalked her to the restaurant to scare her. At this point she again called police, who apprehended the accused.
He denied a charge of issuing death threats.
A verdict is expected on June 19.
salamir@thenational.ae