Dubai court upholds death sentence for Indian

A Dubai court has upheld the death sentence awarded to an Indian national for killing a woman, from whom he had bought a washing machine, by slitting her throat.

The 28-year-old Indian man, identified by the initials of his name AM, admitted in a court of appeal in Dubai to attacking the woman with a knife and stealing her jewellery on September 26 last year, The National reported on Sunday.

The defendant, an accountant by profession, had gone to the victim's apartment in the Al Rafaa area of Dubai on the pretext of getting a receipt for the second-hand washing machine he had bought from the woman a year earlier.

He waited until the woman's husband and son left the house and attacked her with a knife.

He stole jewellery worth 25,000 dirhams (around $6800) from the house.

When the woman didn't go to collect her son from school, neighbours called her husband.

The husband came home to find his wife's body lying in a pool of blood.

The killer told police that he asked the woman not to scream because he was there only to steal, but when she dropped the glass of water and started screaming he decided to kill her.

"He told me that after the murder and the robbery, he put on one of her husband's shirts because his was stained with blood," a police officer said.

The case was referred to the cassation court for final hearing.

The nationality of the victim and the family was not mentioned in the report.