Death sentence for brutal murderer

Dubai: A Dubai court on Wednesday sentenced an Indian driver to death for brutally killing his compatriot during a monetary dispute.

Announcing the verdict, the Court of First Instance found 36-year-old N.M. guilty of premeditated murder of S.R., an accountant, after the victim allegedly refused to pay N.M. his employment benefits, which were around Dh45,000.

On July 9, 2011, the convict packed a knife and a hammer with the intent to kill S.R., 47, and called him to make sure he was alone at his Al Karama home.

N.M. then went to see him. As soon as he got a chance, he attacked him first with the hammer and then used the knife to stab him. Later, forensic examination revealed that the assailant hammered the victim's head eight times before stabbing him 30 times.

Fatal blows

The post-mortem report stated that the blows to the head were fatal, along with two stab wounds that pierced the victim's heart.

Police found the victim's body on the morning of July 11, lying in a pool of blood in his flat in a new building near the Karama Fire Station.

The victim's 37-year-old Indian colleague, who is also named S.R., a human resource director of the property developer where the victim used to work, was one of the witnesses. He told the court that a year before the murder, the convict had threatened to hunt the victim down all the way to India — if need be — to get his money back from him.

"I recall him saying that he has nothing to lose and that his family is capable of caring for his children if something happened to him," S.R. told the judge.

The HR director reported the incident to the accountant, but the latter apparently brushed it off, dismissing it as something said in a fit of rage.