UAE | Crime
Man denies airport hostage drama
A visitor has denied taking a hostage and threatening to slit her neck with glass when police tried to arrest him at the airport's transit terminal, heard a court yesterday.
- By Bassam Za'za', Senior Reporter
- Published: 01:24 March 7, 2008
Dubai: A visitor has denied taking a hostage and threatening to slit her neck with glass when police tried to arrest him at the airport's transit terminal, heard a court yesterday.
Airport police officers surrounded the 36-year-old Gambian suspect, O.J., who was holding a piece of broken glass at the neck of 24-year-old Ukrainian music composer, O.D., and eventually freed her from his clutches.
"The supervisor ... the supervisor ... I will kill her if you get near me," an Emirati first sergeant quoted the suspect as saying when they had him surrounded.
The Public Prosecution charged the Gambian visitor with threatening to slit the neck of the 24-year-old woman, beating and injuring her.
He was also charged with assaulting a policeman and resisting arrest.
Threat
"No ... no, not guilty," replied the suspect when asked by Presiding Judge Abdul Majid Al Nezamy of Dubai Court of First Instance yesterday.
"I saw a group of Emirati men, who wore their local dress, chasing the suspect from behind the glass of the transit terminal where I sat, waiting for my flight to Ukraine.
"Suddenly, he came from behind and held the glass at my neck and head. He warned the local men, who had surrounded him, not to come near and call their chief, otherwise he would kill me.
"Then he sat beside me, pulled my head down over his leg and held the glass at my neck," testified the music composer. She claimed that he repeatedly threatened her and the men who kept him surrounded until they arrested him and saved the woman.
His lawyer said the suspect was put under psychological pressure when the incident happened at the airport. Prosecution witnesses will give their statements to court when it reconvenes soon.
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