Death verdict for man who killed girlfriend’s ex

abu dhabi — An Abu Dhabi expat, who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend’s former partner, has had his death sentence upheld on appeal. The Abu Dhabi Appeal Court upheld an earlier ruling by a lower court which handed down the execution sentence to the Tunisian national after he was found guilty of premeditated murder.

The man’s Canadian girlfriend, who sent him to carry out the crime, was jailed for life.

Official court documents stated that the 28-year-old woman gave her boyfriend a knife, gave him the work address of her former partner and revealed to him when he would be alone.

Prosecutors said the boyfriend then went to the man’s office located in the Khalidiya area and slashed the throat of the 28-year-old Egyptian before he strangled him to death. The murder occurred on May 21, 2014.

A witness had told the court that the Canadian aborted her former lover’s baby before he left her for a Moroccan woman. This led to a “series of disputes between them”, which eventually resulted in murder.

Prosecutors charged the couple with murdering the Egyptian man, consuming drugs, taking psychotropic pills and having sex out of wedlock.

The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance had earlier sentenced the Tunisian to death and his girlfriend to 25 years in jail after they were found guilty of murder.

But the pair challenged the ruling. The duo earlier told the appeal court that they only confessed to murder under “police threats and torture”.

“I didn’t know the victim ... Even now, I don’t know what he looks like,” said the Tunisian. “The first time I heard his name was during interrogation.”

I didn’t know the victim. The first time I heard his name was during interrogation.” Tunisian national, convict