Dubai: Emirati sailor Rashid Al Rashidi's final wish before his execution on Thursday was that his inheritance be invested in building mosques and printing copies of the Quran, Gulf News has learned.
"He spoke to me in a remorseful and apologetic voice…he asked for God's forgiveness then uttered the Shahadatain [the two Islamic testimonies that there is no God but Allah and that Mohammad (PBUH) is His Prophet] a number of times. His final wish was that his share of his father's inheritance be spent on building mosques and printing copies of the Quran and distributing them," Dr Ahmad Al Haddad, Dubai Grand Mufti, who was the last person Al Rashidi spoke to before his execution, told Gulf News yesterday.
Following the instructions of Dubai Attorney General Essam Eisa Al Humaidan to carry out the capital punishment, a firing squad executed 31-year-old Al Rashidi in Al Ruwayah on Thursday morning around 8.30am.
Dubai Cassation Court confirmed the death sentence against Al Rashidi who was convicted of raping and killing four-year-old Pakistani Mousa Mukhtiar Ahmad in the washroom of a mosque on the first day of Eid Al Adha in November 2009.
A top judicial source told Gulf News that the ruler's approval to carry out the execution was signed on January 30.
"He repeatedly asked for the pardon of the family but the father firmly refused to forgive him. Eventually he surrendered himself to his fate. He uttered a number of prayers and read few verses from the Quran then I repeatedly dictated him the Shahadatain and he repeated it out behind me…until he repented. I asked God to forgive him for what he did," Dr Al Haddad told the newspaper.
Dubai Grand Mufti, Al Humaidan, top officials from Dubai Public Prosecution and Dubai Police and Mousa's parents and family attended the execution.
When asked by Gulf News whether he seriously felt that Al Rashidi regretted his crime and was sorry and did not seek forgiveness only because he feared execution, Dr Al Haddad replied: "He sounded penitent and in sorrow. He was not pushed or forced to plead for absolution."
"When someone seeks God's forgiveness voluntarily, then hopefully and God-willingly Allah would forgive him."
Dubai Public Prosecution officially notified Al Rashidi's advocate Abdul Rahman Al Mudharreb about the execution on Tuesday.
Records have shown that this is the first execution to be carried out since the execution of a Yemeni murderer in 2001.
Psychiatric experts
Last year the Cassation Court confirmed the death sentence against Al Rashidi. He was convicted of the rape and premeditated murder of Mousa in the washroom of a mosque in Al Qusais in November 2009.
Psychiatric experts had testified during court proceedings that although Al Rashidi was a paedophile, obsessed with boys, he was indeed stable and sane.
Al Rashidi was arrested soon after he raped and killed the boy on November 27.
A convict has the right to meet his or her family on the same day of the execution, away from the place where the punishment will be carried out.
It has been revealed that no one from his family attended the execution.
