Man smothered woman, dumped body, court told

DUBAI // A quarrel led to the death of a Chinese woman at the hands of her Kenyan friend last year, a court heard yesterday.

The victim's body was found six days after she was smothered to death and dumped in a sewage hole near Maktoum Airport, prosecutors told the court.

The Kenyan administrative officer W O, 29, was charged at the Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance with the premeditated murder of J X, and is facing the death penalty.

W O denied the charges in court yesterday.

On August 19, a missing persons report was filed at the Rashidiya police station by one of J X's friends, records show. The woman told police J X was last seen leaving her home to meet with a Chinese friend.

A second lieutenant at the Dubai Police criminal investigations department told prosecutors that inquiries led them to believe she had gone to meet with W O.

"We called W O, who came on August 22 with another Chinese woman to the police station who seemed nervous and scared," the officer said. "The woman said that she was with W O all day and that they both met the victim and drove her around before she left them."

W O's car was left in police custody

After more investigation, he was called back to the station.

"The suspect confessed to us that he killed the woman after a quarrel errupted over thier relationship. He said that the woman threatened him, so he smothered her to death, then drove out to the desert and dumped her body in a sewage hole," the officer said.

W O led police to the location.

"We found the body inside a sewer located 50 metres off the Dubai Bypass. The body suffered postmortem breaks and bruises, but the cause of death was suffocation," a forensic expert reported.

The court will reconvene on August 7.

amustafa@thenational.ae