Man who murdered compatriot over liquor sales gets 10-yr jail term

dubai — A worker who was accused of killing another worker in a brawl over territory for selling liquor, has been given ten years in jail.

The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance has handed down the jail sentence to the Pakistani after he was found guilty of premeditated murder.

The man was also ordered to pay blood money of Dh200,000 to the family of the Pakistani victim.

One of his colleagues, who was also charged in the case, was given two years in jail for assaulting the man and violating public morality while the third worker was acquitted.

The court was earlier told how the Pakistani men badly beat up the worker with wooden sticks and also stabbed him in the chest and other parts of the body, during a fight near their accommodation camp in Bani Yas area of Abu Dhabi.

The fight, that allegedly involved the defendants on one side and a group of other men including the dead Pakistani on the other, resulted from arguments between the two groups over the illegal sales of alcohol to labourers in the former’s territory.

One of the workers, the second defendant in the case, used a wooden stick to beat up the victim before the main defendant pulled out a kitchen knife and stabbed the man several times in different parts of the body, causing his death.

Prosecutors said that after attacking the worker, the defendants fled the scene. The first defendant allegedly went to a restaurant with blood stains on his clothes.

“People who spotted the man with blood on his clothes informed the police after they suspected him of having attacked someone,” said prosecutors.

“They came and arrested the man, who confessed to attacking and killing the victim along with his two colleagues during a fight.”

Prosecutors charged the Pakistani man with murdering the worker while his two colleagues were charged with assaulting him. At a previous hearing, the Pakistani denied the charge of premeditated murder.

He told court that he wasn’t present at their camp on the day of the murder and that he heard from his friends about someone who was killed, after he returned late in the night.

The second and third men also swore before the judge that they never took part in the fight. The court, however, convicted two of the workers based on evidence presented by the prosecutors.

Both the first and the second defendants will be deported after serving their jail sentences.

ismail@khaleejtimes.com