Dubai: Dubai’s highest court has confirmed a three-year jail sentence against a Nigerian college woman and two fellow students for burning the genitals of a man with a heated knife and beating him to death.

Prosecution records said the woman, 20-year-old Lotana O, and countrymen 21-year-old Kabeero T, and 23-year-old Abu Bakr S, heated the knife and burnt the private parts of the Nigerian man before the deadly assault because he allegedly raped Lotana.

The Dubai Cassation Court rejected the defendants’ appeal for a reduced sentence and also dismissed prosecutors’ appeal to stiffen the punishment.

The court confirmed the three-year imprisonment against the convicts, who will be deported after serving their punishment.

The defendants pleaded not guilty, citing self defence. They said they did not intend to cause the victim’s death.

Prosecutors charged the Nigerian students with beating the victim to death after torturing him because he allegedly raped Lotana while she was intoxicated.

Lotana, Kabeero and Abu Bakr beat their countryman S.B. to death and burned his penis with the heated knife in an act of revenge.

The men were jailed also for three months each for consuming liquor.

Abu Bakr was acquitted of molesting and dishonouring the victim.

Prosecutors said the defendants prepared for the assault in advance and brought a knife and belts.

Instead of reporting to police that S.B. raped Lotana, they lured the victim to a flat where they beat him until he collapsed.

Then they removed his clothes and Lotana burnt his private parts.

Dubai Police’s forensic examiner said the victim succumbed to internal bleeding in the skull. The doctor said the victim fell to the floor due to a brutal beating and hit his head.

Records said the incident happened after the defendants, the victim and some friends, partied at Burj Khalifa.

Then they left to visit a friend’s flat.

The college girl claimed that she woke up and realised that S.B. was naked and had sex with her.

She claimed that he raped her because she was drunk.

“I asked Kabeero and Abu Bakr to beat S.B. in revenge for what he did. We asked the victim to come to Abu Bakr’s residence. When he confessed that he raped me, we beat him. I slapped him but I didn’t use any tool to assault him.

“My countrymen beat him with their hands and a belt,” Lotana claimed.

An Emirati police lieutenant testified that S.B.’s body was discovered in a flat in Tecom in Jebel Ali. Primary interrogations led to the defendants’ arrest.

The judgement has become final.