DUBAI // The 15-year sentence for a receptionist who killed a business partner who was trying to blackmail her into having sex with him has been upheld by the Appeal Court.
Married Pakistani AG, 31, stabbed the 45-year-old man, E?A, who is also from Pakistan, to death on September 17 last year after he used blank cheques she had written to blackmail her into sex.
The man wrote the cheques, for amounts totalling Dh50,000, then submitted them to police with a claim that they had bounced.
Prosecutors said that the receptionist and a male Pakistani trader, M?F, lured E?A to her flat in Al Rashidiya and stabbed him several times.
They left him on the floor, locked the door and fled to Pakistan. Through a source in Pakistan, Dubai Police tracked the woman down.
"We had to negotiate with her and we explained to her that the UAE penal code takes into consideration cases where there is a protection of honour involved," said Lt Col Ahmed Al Meeri, head of the criminal investigation division, last year.
AG's accomplace still remains at large though.
EA's body was found by property agent A?H at the flat. The agent said he agreed to let the flat to the receptionist for Dh2,200 a month but when they met to hand over the keys she said she would have to pay him the next day.
"She asked me for Dh300 to send to her sick mother through a friend travelling to Pakistan that day," he said, without mentioning whether he gave it to her.
He tried to call her that evening but could not get through and became suspicious.
The agent told another tenant he could have the flat if the receptionist was not there.
When the two men arrived at the flat, they forced open the door and found the body. AH said he had known the woman since 2009, when she rented a flat in Al Qusais.
AG was sentenced to 15 years in jail by Dubai Criminal Court last September. She will be deported after completing her prison term.
salamir@thenational.ae
