DEATH SENTENCE FOR ‘HUMAN WOLF’ WHO MURDERED BOY ON ABU DHABI ROOFTOP
▶ Athan Janjua, 11, was raped and killed in May while returning home from afternoon prayers and Quran recitation
A man who raped and strangled an 11-year-old boy on the roof of an apartment building in Abu Dhabi was yesterday sentenced to death by the Criminal Court.
In May, Athan Janjua was walking home from afternoon prayers and Quran recitation.
His killer disguised himself as a woman by wearing an abaya and lured the boy – his sister’s stepson – to the roof of the building where Athan lived with his family.
There the middle-aged Pakistani tried to rape him but the boy resisted and begged his attacker to respect the copy of the Quran lying next to him, prosecutors said, basing their account on the killer’s confessions.
When Athan continued to resist, he strangled him with a laundry rope.
Public prosecution and the boy’s Russian mother and Pakistani father insisted on the death sentence against Athan’s killer.
Dr Majid Janjua, Athan’s father, yesterday said he was satisfied with the verdict and was looking forward to the execution.
“Of course we are a bit relieved at the decision,” Dr Janjua said. “But he is still breathing. As as long as he is breathing it is hard for us.”
Any death sentence must go through the courts of appeal and cassation before the sentence can be carried out.
“I don’t know how long it will take,” Dr Janjua said. “By law they have to go through these steps but I am waiting for the day they will execute him and I will be there.”
His mother, Tatiana Kruzina, said Athan was a loving and caring boy.
“Our son was very brave. If somebody would try to do something wrong, he fought and he fought,” she said.
Athan was reported missing on May 30, during Ramadan. His body was found the next day by maintenance workers. His parents were given the news by a cousin who called them while they were at Athan’s school searching for him.
“We went there and I saw that my son was lying down,” Dr Janjua said. “When I saw the scene, I lost focus of the surroundings. I focused only on my son.”
Athan moved to Abu Dhabi from Moscow, where he lived with his mother, two years before his death.
His father was born and raised in the capital.
“After he came to my life it was full of joy and I felt young,” Dr Janjua said.
“Because I know what he suffered when he was away from me, I tried to compensate. He was a very active kid.”
The killer was arrested in Abu Dhabi a few days later. Throughout court proceedings he denied committing the crime, saying he was at a labour camp in Mussaffah at the time.
He told the court it did not make sense that he would kill the boy and attend his funeral two days later.
“I was like everybody else, consoling the family and was surprised when CID arrested me,” the killer said.
A sanity test requested by his appointed lawyer, Hassan Al Riyami, showed the defendant to be of sound mind and responsible for his actions.
Prosecutors insisted that they had enough evidence, and security footage showed him walking in and out of the building before and after the crime.
They described him as a “human wolf”, saying he committed a terrible crime and betrayed the victim’s father, who had helped him to find a job at an air-conditioning company.