Dubai: A lawyer defending a man charged with the premeditated murder of a distant relative told a court on Sunday that his client beat the victim twice on his head after being humiliated and provoked into a rage by the latter.
"Minutes before the incident, the victim ridiculed my 47-year-old Palestinian client T.B. [charged with the premeditated murder of his distant cousin A.B.] and provocatively told him that his family in Jordan had learnt that he [A.B.] raped his teenaged daughter and made her pregnant. The victim told T.B. that he would humiliate him like he did to his daughter," advocate Yusri Sa'ad of Al Redha Advocates argued before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Sunday.
Victim's demand
"He even went further and asked the suspect to make him a partner in his company. Unable to hold back his anger, T.B. grabbed a pipe and beat A.B. twice on his head. The latter dropped dead," Saad added.
T.B., who owns a company, had earlier pleaded not guilty to premeditatedly killing his distant cousin who had allegedly raped his 17-year-old daughter.
Saad told Presiding Judge Al Saeed Mohammad Barghout: "We ask the court to modify the charge from premeditated murder to killing, because the factor of premeditation is groundless… on the day of the incident, my client took A.B. with him to a number of places for business purposes.
"Lastly, they went to the suspect's warehouse in Al Qouz and when the victim provoked and humiliated T.B., the latter lost self-awareness and control and battered the back of A.B.'s head with an iron pipe."
When he defended himself in court last October, T.B. has said: "I totally deny this fabricated charge… I am not guilty."
Prosecutors charged the defendant with plotting the premeditated murder of A.B. over family and business disputes.
Saad contended in Courtroom 9, which was packed with relatives of the suspect and the victim, that his client "tried all possible means to fix the matter after his daughter carried A.B.'s illegal child following the rape incident".
"Had my client had premeditated intention to kill A.B., he would not have paid him Dh100,000 to buy gold for the wedding and he wouldn't have offered to pay for the couple to move to Jordan to cover up the scandal," added Saad.
The defence lawyer asked Presiding Judge Barghout to hand out a lenient judgment to his client.
The daughter testified: "A.B. got some photos of me during his visits to our home. A family dispute erupted after my dad knew. One day A.B. phoned me claiming he wanted to return the indecent photos… he lured me to his car and raped me in a sandy area."
