ABU DHABI // An Asian car repair shop worker, who argued with his father over money, stabbed him to death as he prayed, police said yesterday. A 21-year-old man, identified as MMS, told detectives that he killed his father, 52-year-old MSA, because he refused to give him "a few dirhams". Police said the victim was stabbed seven times with a kitchen knife in the stomach and back.
"When I walk up in the shop's attic where I live, I saw my father praying in the shop," MMS was said to have told officers. "Then I took a knife from the fridge and ran downstairs and hit my father three times in the stomach. Then he knelt and I stabbed him four times in the back. "I threw the knife and held him strongly to my chest so he wouldn't move, so he can die in my hands." Major Juma al Kaabi, the head of homicide at the Criminal Investigation Department of Abu Dhabi Police, said the suspect had been involved in several quarrels with co-workers in the past.
"He was admitted to hospital for 15 days," said Major al Kaabi. "He suffers from multiple mental illnesses." Under the penal code, if mental incompetence is established, a suspect would not face trial but would be kept in a mental health facility. Otherwise, the suspect could face a life sentence or death, if the murder was premeditated. MSA worked and lived with his son and two other workers in the car repair shop.
The two workers told investigators they saw the suspect holding his bleeding father then overpowered him and called the police. The police did not disclose the date and location of the incident. mhabboush@thenational.ae
