Dubai: Gardener murders elderly man for being 'talkative', jailed for life

Dubai - He said he sat beside the body for an hour after committing the murder.

Published: Wed 15 Sep 2021, 2:34 AM

Updated: Thu 16 Sep 2021, 3:06 PM

By
Afkar Ali Ahmed

A 32-year-old Asian gardener has been sentenced by the Dubai Criminal court to life imprisonment for strangling his 75-year-old employer to death when he was sleeping. The accused confessed to the authorities that he had murdered his sponsor because he was talkative and grumbled a lot. He said he sat beside the body for an hour after committing the murder.

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According to investigations by the police and the Public Prosecution, the victim’s wife said that she had gone out with her children. When she returned in the evening, the accused met her at the entrance and told her that the victim had fallen to the ground. But she saw a piece of cloth wrapped around his neck. She thought that he had fallen because of high sugar as he was suffering from diabetes and had gone into coma. She then informed the police.

She said the accused gave her husband’s phone to her when the ambulance came. The medical team in the ambulance told her that the victim had died. By the time the police came, the accused disappeared from the scene.

Besides being diabetic, her husband had undergone surgery for one of his eyes, could not hear well or walk alone. However, he was strong mentally, she said.

Initial investigations suggested that the presence of a piece of cloth around his neck and the suspicious disappearance of the accused when the police arrived indicated it was criminal act. The wife said the accused must have escaped as he was being sponsored by others and was working illegally.

The CID team managed to locate the accused and arrested him.

During interrogation, he admitted that he was working as a gardener, and the victim’s son convinced him to serve his elderly father for Dh2,000 a month. He said he worked for two months, but was paid only Dh800. Later, his salary was cut to Dh600 a month.

He also said that the victim was mistreating him, even abusing and hitting him with his stick. On the day of the incident, the victim asked him to make tea and shisha. However, the victim hit him on the pretext of being late, so the accused pushed him to the ground and asked him to stop hitting him.

According to the accused, the victim then got up and slapped him. The accused then pushed him again and crouched on top of him; the victim resisted and tried to wrap a white cloth on the neck of the accused, he said. But he pulled it from him and strangled the victim and made sure that he died. He then sat next to his body for an hour after he committed the crime.