Dubai: An electrician has been accused of stabbing his co-worker to death with a razor because the latter had smelly feet.
The 22-year-old Pakistani electrician and his countryman co-worker were said to have been resting in the air-conditioned electricity room during the midday break in July last year.
The co-worker who was sleeping on the floor put his feet up facing the electrician. When the defendant asked him to move the feet away because of their bad smell, he refused. The two men got into a heated argument that snowballed into a fist-fight before other workmates intervened and stopped the brawl.
The 22-year-old then rushed to a nearby warehouse at the construction site where they had been working, came back with a razor and stabbed the co-worker in his neck.
Surveillance cameras on the site showed the electrician hiding the razor behind him before he attacked the victim three or four times.
Medical reports confirmed that the co-worker was rushed to the hospital in a critical state on July 26 where he suffered profuse bleeding and slipped into a coma. Despite several operations, he succumbed to his injuries on July 31.
Prosecutors accused the suspect of premeditatedly killing his countryman with the razor.
When the electrician appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance, he pleaded not guilty and refuted the premeditated intention.
“I did not plan that in advance. We had a fight and when he tried to assault me, I assaulted him back,” the suspect told presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi.
A Syrian supervisor testified to prosecutors that the incident happened shortly after he had permitted the workers to go and rest in the electricity room because it had a cooler.
“After lunch, the suspect and the victim got into a brawl when the latter slept with his feet in front of the suspect’s face. The two quarrelled when the victim refused to move away his smelly feet. The security guard came and told me what had happened … when I went to the room, the suspect was not there and so I told the victim to rest somewhere else. Then when I got inside my car and was about to drive, a worker came running and told me that the suspect had assaulted the victim, who was bleeding from his neck,” the supervisor told prosecutors.
A police sergeant testified to prosecutors that the suspect was apprehended from the worksite.
“Upon questioning him, the suspect claimed that the victim had very smelly feet when he slept in front of him with his legs up before his face. When he asked the victim to move his feet away, he refused. Then they had a heated argument, according to the suspect’s statement, and they assaulted each other. He further claimed that when the deceased cursed him, he felt angry, so he got the razor from the warehouse and stabbed the victim,” the sergeant said.
The court will appoint a lawyer for the defendant when it reconvenes on March 29.
