Dubai: An Emirati sailor, Rashid Al Rashidi, who was sentenced to death for the rape and murder of a four-year-old schoolboy on Eid Al Adha in 2009, will be executed very soon, Gulf News learned on Tuesday.
"The 31-year-old convict, Al Rashidi, will be executed very soon. Probably in a few days, but the exact date has not been finalised," a top judicial source told Gulf News on Tuesday.
"The execution will be carried out in a few days ... However, I am still waiting to be legally and officially informed about this through the Dubai Public Prosecution," Al Rashidi's advocate Abdul Rahman Al Mudharreb said yesterday.
The top judicial official, who requested anonymity, confirmed the execution has been approved.
The Dubai Cassation Court confirmed the death sentence against Al Rashidi last year.
Conviction
He was convicted of the rape and premeditated murder of the Pakistani boy Mousa Mukhtiar Ahmad in the washroom of a mosque on the first day of Eid Al Adha in November 2009.
Psychiatrists testified that although Al Rashidi is a paedophile obsessed with boys, he was of stable mind. Al Rashidi was arrested soon after he had raped and murdered the boy on November 27.
Procedure
According to the Criminal Procedures Law, the attorney general refers the file to the Ruler for approval. The convict also 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.
Al Mudharreb had pleaded for leniency and asked the court to commute his client's death sentence to a sentence of life in jail, but his plea was rejected.
"When I met him in prison, he strongly [denied having] any intention to kill the boy. He alleged that he did not beat [the boy] on his head and argued that he gagged [the boy] to stop him from crying and shouting," Al Mudharreb argued in court.
Al Rashidi's capital punishment was unanimously approved by 11 judges, three in the First Instance Court, three in the Appeals Court and five in the Cassation Court.
