Director gets 10 years in jail for murder

Aya Al Deeb, Staff Reporter

The Abu Dhabi Court of Cassation sentenced an Asian director to 10 years in jail and obligated him to pay Dhs200,000 in blood money to be followed by deportation on charges of murdering one of his employees during a fishing trip as he previously knew the victim could not swim.

The case dated back to a dispute between the defendant and the victim after the latter had an affair with the defendant’s girlfriend. In response, the defendant gave assignments to the victim that did not fall within the scope of his work but the victim used to reject them. This caused the workers and employees to ridicule the defendant over the victim’s bid not to obey his orders. The defendant decided to get rid of the victim more than two weeks from his actual death.

The defendant invited the victim and two other employees (second and third defendants) to a fishing trip and plotted to dump him in water because he previously knew he could not swim.

Investigations revealed that the defendant had already gone to the scene of the crime and found a place where he could get rid of the victim. He arranged to go out for fishing and drinking wine and took the victim and two more employees to keep him away from suspicion but he was surprised by the presence of other people and consequently could not get rid of the victim on that day.

On the day of the incident, the defendant, who had already decided to kill the victim, took the same people for drinking wine and fishing. In the evening, the defendant asked the victim and another employee (second defendant) to accompany him offshore for fishing. The third employee was completely drunk and had to be onshore.

The victim’s job was to take the fish to the shore. Finally, the defendant grabbed a fish and asked the victim to come to take it but as the latter approached him, the defendant pushed him to the water slope to drown instantly.

The Court of First Instance sentenced the first and second defendants to death for premeditated murder and fined the three defendants Dhs10,000 for drinking wine. They were also obligated to pay the lawyer’s fees. The defendant appealed against the verdict and the Court of Appeal ruled that the appeal be accepted and the death verdict against the first defendant be commuted to 10 years in jail and blood money of Dhs200,000 after the victim’s relative waived their right.

The second defendant was charged with the crime of not reporting the murder to the police and was sentenced to one year in jail to be followed by deportation.