Man sentenced to death appears in court over visa dispute

ABU DHABI // A prisoner who has been given the death penalty for murder on Tuesday asked a court what could be achieved by trying him over an immigration issue.

“I have already been issued a death sentence and now you are asking me about a labour visa issue? What more can be done? What does prosecution want from me more than a death sentence?” said A K from Egypt.

“The court wants me to pay a fine of Dh100,000? If I had that money I would have offered to pay it as blood money for the murder. How will I be of any benefit to you? I have been sentenced to death.”

He was accused of illegally recruiting two labourers at a bakery he co-owned with an Emirati.

“They trained for us for two days and then left,” he said. “When police caught them they gave my name saying they worked for me.”

Chief Justice Sayed Abdul Baseer asked why he had lodged an appeal if he did not want to appear in court. He answered that he only wanted to appeal against his death sentence.

The judge scheduled the verdict for October 21 but the accused asked for it to be a day earlier.

“Can you make it on the 20th because I have to come anyway in front of the other judge for the murder appeal,” he said.

He was given the death sentence for killing a Palestinian man on December 30 last year after a dispute over Dh250,000 he had borrowed from the victim.

He killed the Palestinian with a brick and burnt the remains to try to disguise his identity, then hid them in an alley in Mohammed bin Zayed City. Police said he confessed to the murder.

hdajani@thenational.ae