Soldier gets one year in jail for dumping body

Emirati guilty facilitating heroin consumption to friend who died

DUBAI // A soldier has been jailed for a year for abandoning the body of a friend, who had overdosed on heroin, outside Welcare Hospital in Dubai.

The 18-year-old Emirati was found guilty of facilitating the heroin consumption of his friend, also Emirati, who died on March 6.

A 32-year-old Sudanese man with the pair was acquitted of the facilitation charge.

The two friends confessed at Dubai Criminal Court to consuming drugs, for which they each received four-year jail sentences.

The pair left the body outside the hospital at about 3.30am.

Police were called to the scene by hospital staff.

“Once we arrived we saw the body on the pavement,” said a 26-year-old officer, adding that hospital security guards told him a man came in to the hospital, told staff about the body then left. “They said the man came in a car that stopped in the car park, so we headed there and saw the man as identified by guards,” the officer said.

The Sudanese student was arrested in a supermarket close to the hospital.

“When it came to his arrest, he started saying he didn’t do anything and refused to get into the patrol car,” said the officer. The Sudanese man will be deported after serving his jail term.