Dubai: A worker has denied a charge of premeditated murder and claimed instead that he was defending himself against the victim of the stabbing who, he says, intentionally attacked him in his accommodation.
"The victim, A.K., carried a knife and walked into my place. We fought and when he tried to stab me, I took away the knife from him and stabbed him in self-defence. He repeatedly hit me on my head but I was defending myself … other men who watched us fighting didn't intervene to stop the quarrel," argued the 30-year-old Pakistani worker, S.H., when he pleaded not guilty before the Dubai Court of First Instance.
Prosecutors charged S.H. with pre-planning the intentional killing of his compatriot victim. According to the bill of charges, the suspect stabbed the deceased repeatedly in his chest and stomach.
When Presiding Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad referred to the charges against S.H., the latter argued: "Your honour, I am not guilty. I didn't intend to kill him. He started the attack and I took away the knife from his hands and stabbed him … I killed him by mistake."
An Emirati police corporal testified that the alleged murder happened in workers' accommodation in Jebel Ali.
"When I examined the victim's body, I found the handle of a knife broken inside his chest. A man, named M.E., confessed that a group fight erupted between him and three other men, including the suspect and the deceased. Primary interrogations with M.E. and other witnesses exposed that S.H. stabbed the victim.
"After four hours, we arrested the defendant hiding in a nearby caravan. The defendant alleged to me that he stabbed the deceased because he insulted his tribe," the corporal said in his statement.
Presiding Judge Abdul Jawad adjourned the case until February 8 to assign a lawyer to defend S.H.
