Court told 13 police beat up and killed prisoner

Officers deny torture and murder charges.

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DUBAI // Thirteen police officers brutally beat and tortured three prisoners, injuring one of them so badly that they killed him, prosecutors alleged yesterday.

The allegations against the 13, all officers with the Dubai Police Criminal Investigation Department, were made on the opening day of their trial in the Criminal Court of First Instance.

The three prisoners, all Pakistani, were arrested last May during an investigation into the alleged kidnap and murder of another Pakistani in Dubai.

MS, 33, a cashier, told prosecutors he was detained in Al Satwa on May 27 and put in a CID car, where he was slapped and punched in the face, abdomen and thighs. He was taken to Al Rafaa police station, then to Naif.

Prosecutors say officers there hit him in the groin with a metal bar and a wooden stick, then stripped him naked and sprayed his body with WD-40, an anti-rust agent.

During his interrogation, he told prosecutors, a police officer shouted: "If he doesn't respect the law, we beat him, and if he dies, we dump his body somewhere.

S?H, a shop supervisor who was arrested the following day, said his hands were tied behind his back before he was beaten and left standing in a dark room.

He said the abuse was carried out by several officers. “Some of them insulted me in both Arabic and Urdu,” he told prosecutors.

He said the officers banged his head against a wall as they continued beating and kicking him.

M?S and S?H both said that as they were being moved from an interrogation room, they heard someone else being beaten. They saw B?K, who had been arrested on the same day as M?S, lying motionless on the floor of another room, face down and wearing traditional Pakistani clothing.

A?E, a forensic scientist who examined B?K’s body, said the victim had suffered bruises all over his body, and the cause of death was bleeding in the brain.

The bruises were probably caused by sticks or bars but some had been caused by bare hands, the scientist said, and the beating of M?S had caused his kidneys to fail.

When B?K’s body was taken to the police morgue, the doctor there suspected the man had been abused.

The 13 officers all deny murdering B?K at Naif police station in early June last year. They also deny torture, unlawful detention, abuse of power, excessive use of force during interrogation, forgery and giving a false statement. They will appear before the court again on June 26.

salamir@thenational.ae