Man beat and stabbed ex-girlfriend to death

DUBAI // A man beat his former girlfriend with a baseball bat before stabbing her to death and setting her workplace on fire.

The Kenyan, 29, a shipping inspector, pleaded guilty to murder and destruction of property.

Dubai Criminal Court was told yesterday that the victim had recently broken up with her boyfriend and moved out of their flat in Sharjah.

She was at work at an office in Silicon Oasis in March last year on the day of her death.

“A co-worker opened the door and in came the defendant, holding a cloth in the shape of a ball,” said an Indian colleague of the victim, aged 29.

“He talked to the victim angrily in their native language before he lit the cloth with a lighter and threw it on the carpet.”

She and her co- workers fled but the suspect grabbed his former girlfriend. “We heard her screaming and things getting smashed in the office,” the witness said. “I went out to escape. There was so much smoke I couldn’t see clearly.” The woman said she stumbled on the victim’s body while fleeing. “There was a knife stuck in her neck. The defendant was not there. I ran out of the office and told my co- workers what happened.”

An Emirati policeman said the defendant had claimed “he had problems with his girlfriend and tried to patch things up, but she refused”.

He also set her workplace on fire