Dubai: Two visitors have been jailed for three years each for providing sexual services at a massage centre and beating to death a man who pestered their masseuses.
The Vietnamese visitors, aged 32 and 33, had been distributing cards advertsisng sex and massage services at a flat in International City where they ran a brothel, in July last year.
The two visitors had beaten up a Pakistani man who pestered and annoyed a masseuse at the flat. The Pakistani had turned up with three compatriots to take revenge on the Vietnamese men.
The man’s Pakistani friends had assaulted the Vietnamese duo, who snatched a knife from one of the Pakistanis and stabbed the man who had harassed the masseuses. The man had died later.
On Monday, the Dubai Court of First Instance jailed the Vietnamese defendant for three years after modifying their murder charge to fatal assault.
When they appeared in court, the Vietnamese duo denied the charges of premeditated murder and promoting immoral practices. They claimed that they did not kill the victim, and had only assaulted him.
Presiding judge Abdul Halim Hussein also jailed the Pakistani trio to two months in jail each for assaulting the Vietnamese.
The Pakistani trio were also fined Dh2,000 each.
“The flat will be shut down for three years and it will not be reopened except after obtaining prosecutors’ permission to do so, and strictly for lawful purposes,” ruled presiding judge Hussein.
According to Monday’s ruling, the five defendants will be deported following the completion of their punishments.
Prosecutors had accused the Vietnamese defendants and a countryman, who remains at large, of killing the victim, who had been constantly stalking the masseuses.
The duo stabbed the victim and killed him and assaulted the other Pakistani trio.
However, the court ruled that the duo did not murder the victim and altered the murder accusation to assault which resulted in death.
A police lieutenant said they were informed that a man had been stabbed to death and was found in front of a building’s entrance.
“We found victim lying in a pool of blood. We also spotted a knife in front of the emergency exit. The Pakistani defendants told us that the Vietnamese stabbed their friend and killed him due to a previous dispute. Surveillance camera footage showed the Vietnamese assaulting the victim. Primary interrogations revealed that the victim had visited the flat for a massage and he quarrelled with the Vietnamese men, who beat him up. Then he contacted his countrymen defendants to take revenge. Thereafter, a group fight took place and the Vietnamese defendants stabbed and killed him. Further interrogations exposed that the flat was being run as a brothel,” the lieutenant told prosecutors.
Monday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
