Dubai: A cleaner has been jailed for 15 years for killing his boss’s niece following an altercation at the boss’s flat.

The 32-year-old Filipino cleaner resigned from the hotel where he worked in August but the hotel management asked him to pay Dh6,000 before it could accept his resignation.

He visited his boss’s flat to ask her to help him convince the management to waive the Dh6,000 he was supposed to pay but got into a heated argument with the woman’s niece before fatally stabbing her.

The accused fled to his brother’s residence following the incident and asked him to call the police because he reckoned he had killed someone.

The boss, who is a Filipina, was not present in the flat at the time the 32-year-old got into a scuffle with her niece. The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the cleaner of killing the niece and jailed him for 15 years.

Presiding judge Mohammad Jamal also ordered that the accused be deported after serving his punishment.

Records said Dubai Police apprehended the accused from his brother’s place.

Medical records said the Filipina died of knife wounds to the neck.

The niece had only been in the UAE for a week and was about to be hired as a nurse in Abu Dhabi.

When he appeared in court, the defendant pleaded not guilty and contended that he did not intend to kill the victim. “We had a scuffle … the knife landed on her neck but I did not intend to kill her. It happened by mistake,” he claimed.

The Filipina boss testified that the victim had been staying at her flat for just about a week before the incident happened.

“She was about to get hired as a nurse and was supposed to travel home until her visa got processed. I was the defendant’s boss at work. When he resigned from the hotel, the management fired him. He had been visiting the human resources department and trying to convince them to excuse him from paying Dh6,000. He asked me to negotiate with the management or help him resolve that issue. The defendant and other co-workers used to come over to my flat to dine and spend time together. A week prior to the incident, I saw him at a supermarket and he asked me to help him; I told him that I would try,” she said.

The cleaner’s brother claimed that his brother came to his place and asked him to call the police because he had stabbed someone.

The cleaner confessed before prosecutors that he stabbed his former boss’s niece in the neck but maintained that he never intended to kill her.

The ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.