Man who killed countryman with iron bar has sentenced doubled in Dubai

DUBAI // A worker serving seven years in jail for beating a colleague to death with an iron bar has had his sentence more than doubled by the Court of Appeal.

Dubai Criminal Court jailed A S for seven years in April. The Appeal Court increased his sentence to 15 years.

Prosecutors told Dubai Criminal Court at an earlier hearing that on November 18 last year, Bangladeshi A S, 29, killed his compatriot S A by hitting him on the head with an iron bar.

The man who reported the incident, Pakistani M S, 37, told officers he saw A S running back and forth from where the building where body was found. “I went down and saw the dead man so I called my supervisor then police,” M S said.

“We received a report of the incident and rushed to the location where the dead man was lying topless in a pool of blood in a building in International City,” said police captain T A, 36.

A S told police he was urinating behind a tree when he noticed S A filming him. He said S A blackmailed him into cleaning a building by threatening to show the video to other people.

“I cleaned the place, as he requested, but then when I asked him to repay me a debt of Dh500 he refused and started insulting me,” A S said.

“We fought and then I saw the iron bar, picked it up and struck him, but I was drunk. I did not mean to kill him.”

A S said that he took the victim’s mobile phone, removed its battery and then buried it in the sand.

He will be deported after completing his prison term.

tzriqat@thenational.ae