Dubai: Four men have been jailed for one year each for disposing of the body of a 19-year-old prostitute who was killed by her pimp after a fight.
The 19-year-old Pakistani woman was flown into the country by a Pakistani gang suspected of running a brothel before she quarrelled with her pimp, who killed her in June 2016.
The pimp left the country, while the four defendants, aged between 27 and 37, put her body in a big bag, kept it in a flat for 15 hours before driving to Umm Al Quwain [UAQ] where they dumped it.
The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the quartet of getting rid of the woman’s body by disposing it of somewhere in UAQ.
Presiding judge Shaikha Hamad said the defendants will be deported following the completion of their punishment.
Police apprehended three of the defendants while the fourth remained at large since he left Dubai after disposing of the body.
According to Tuesday’s ruling, the fourth defendant was sentenced in absentia and is entitled to a retrial.
The defendants pleaded guilty when they showed up before court.
The pimp murdered the 19-year-old before he called up the quartet, according to the accusation sheet, and asked them to help him dispose of the body.
The quartet went to the pimp’s flat, wrapped the body in a body bag, and transferred it to another flat.
The prosecutors said two suspects invited the guard of the building [where they had moved the body] to have sex for free at a flat while the other two went down and tampered with the surveillance cameras.
The defendants then moved the body to the car of the pimp and kept it by the side of a road in UAQ.
Dubai Police’s forensic examiner said stray animals had chewed away parts of her arms.
“Preliminary investigation revealed that the woman escaped from her pimp and hid in the flat of one of the four defendants. The murder suspect [main suspect who killed her] treated her as a mistress and used to have sex with her … he also forced her to have sex with his private clients. Thereafter she had a fight with that fugitive, who killed her.
“Her body that was decomposed beyond recognition was recovered from UAQ. Preliminary investigation led to the arrest of three of the suspects, while the fourth remains at large. The three claimed during questioning that the fugitive pimp [who is suspected to have killed the girl] told them that she had thrown herself from the third-storey window after they quarrelled,” a police lieutenant said.
The primary judgement remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
