Dubai: Thirteen Asians accused of kidnapping and murdering two men have denied the charges at a Dubai court on Monday.
The prosecution accused 12 Indians and a Pakistani of kidnapping the Indian victims, "attacking them with sharp tools and hard objects" and burying them in a hole, in which police found their bodies.
Medical reports confirmed that the victims "suffocated under the sand."
Five defendants also face charges of raping the victims. The defendants — aged between 21 and 30 — pleaded not guilty before the Dubai Court of First Instance.
Chief Prosecutor Sami Al Shamsi asked the court for the death sentence for all the defendants.
Ten suspects were also charged with consuming liquor and a 24-year-old Indian blacksmith, M.S., was charged with possessing 78 liquor bottles for "trading purposes".
An Emirati policeman testified that they [the police] received a tip-off about the kidnap of two Indians as part of a war between two bootlegging gangs.
"Preliminary investigations showed some of the suspects' involvement in the abduction… we spotted M.S. and other suspects carrying sharp and hard tools in Jebel Ali. All the suspects were detained. M.S. told me that they kidnapped, assaulted, gang-raped and buried the victims to teach them a lesson not to bootleg in their zone," the policeman said in the court.
