CCTV footage shows the Algerian man rushing out from the building.
DUBAI – An Algerian businessman who beat and stabbed to death a Chinese accountant inside an elevator so he could steal Dh1.02 million in the man’s bag will be executed for the murder.
The Dubai court upheld the Algerian’s death sentence on Wednesday. In February, the Dubai Court of First Instance gave him the capital punishment.
An Indian security guard discovered the accountant’s body inside the elevator.
“When I saw the defendant running quickly out of the tower, I suspected something bad had happened. I went to the corridor beside the lift and saw bloody footprints. When I went back to the entrance, the defendant had gone. When I opened the lift door, I found the Chinese man’s body,” the guard told the court.
Police said that the Algerian used a stick and a knife to kill the accountant, beating him and then stabbing him twice in the chest and shoulder. He then took a taxi and rushed to a hotel in Deira where his wife and two children were waiting.
Police investigators were able to trace the Algerian after he was seen in CCTV footage at the time of the murder.
The Algerian man “was spotted on different CCTVs rushing out from the tower and holding a backpack and a bag in his arms”, a police officer testified in court.
He said that the Algerian man headed to a tailor in Sharjah where he changed his clothes and was overheard saying he was heading to Ajman.
“We tracked down the taxi driver, who guided us to the location where he had dropped the defendant in Hatta near the border. The defendant was arrested in Hatta,” the police officer said.
During police interrogation, the man admitted that “destitution and psychological pressures” forced him to steal the money and that he had also planned to rob money exchange houses in Deira. DAJ/Expat Media
