Dubai, February 09: An Indian man who strangled a housemaid to death was handed the capital punishment by the Court of First Instance on Tuesday. The verdict is open to appeal within 15 days.
The defendant was found guilty of killing the Asian woman in his sponsor’s car on June 14, 2009, by strangling her with her ‘sheila’ (headscarf). He was earlier charged with premeditated murder linked with molestation.
An Emirati sergeant told the prosecution that police found the body on its back in a parking lot in Muttaina, Muraqqabat. Police put out pictures in a local newspaper asking people to identify the body.
On seeing the photographs, the dead woman’s sponsor came forward and informed the police that the defendant was his assistant and had accompanied the victim to the municipality clinic in Naif for a medical fitness test.
The woman did not return with the accused, who told the sponsor the woman had ran away while he was submitting her application at the centre. But footage obtained from surveillance cameras at the
clinic showed the two were nowhere in sight.
Police confronted the defendant with their findings and the man confessed that he had driven the maid to the centre and had bought her juice and biscuits.
He said he had touched and fondled her on the way and she did not object. But she panicked when she started to bleed and threatened to complain to their employer. He parked the car on the side of a road in Al Hamriyah and tried to calm her down, but she continued with her threats.
So in a fit of fury he tightened the ‘sheila’ around her neck for about two minutes until she slumped forward in the seat and stopped breathing.
He later discarded the body in a sandy, desolate spot in Muttaina area of Tawwar.
The corpse was found by a Moroccan bus driver the same day, who informed the police.
–Agencies–