The photo has been used for illustrative purposes.

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A security guard knifed his wife to death for trying to commit suicide. He must see out his 10-year-jail term, the Appeals Court ruled on Wednesday.

The African guard, 26, found the Cameroonian wife preparing to commit suicide. He repeatedly struck her until she passed away inside an apartment at a building along Dubai-Ain Road on Sept.7.2017.

He then stabbed his stomach in a desperate attempt to commit suicide too, Al Barsha Police Station records showed. “Not guilty,” he reiterated denying murder and attempted suicide in court.

Prosecutors sought the toughest punishment applicable. During another hearing he contended she was the one who assaulted him. “She knifed me seven times in the stomach then my arm and neck.

“I had to undergo surgical procedures. My entrails were out. A hospital report about her sanity confirmed she was normal.” The Dubai Criminal Court sentenced him to ten years behind bars over the murder.

It sentenced him to three months in prison over attempted suicide and ordered he be deported after serving both terms. He appealed seeking to challenge the ruling but the Dubai Appeals Court upheld it.

Records showed the defendant confessed before police and prosecutors that he killed his wife. He explained how he struck her from all sides. A forensic report showed she sustained multiple stab wounds.

A Cameroonian flatmate revealed both were happy after she received a job interview invite. It was unclear whether she tried to commit suicide for failing the interview. Records did not disclose the reason. The flatmate said, “I found the flat locked and silent. The defendant was not responding to phone calls. A technician opened using a spare key. I saw the bloodstained defendant lying next to the victim’s body.”

An Emirati corporal revealed that the guard on seeing him threw the knife on the ground. The corporal’s colleague said the then bloodstained guard leaned against a bed with a wound on his stomach.

An Emirati lieutenant said he saw utensils scattered and the room stained. He explained, “I questioned the guard and he told me that he returned from the washroom and spotted his wife with a knife.

“She told him she was going to end her life. He grabbed the knife and put her in a chokehold. He struck her several times. She tried to escape. He struck her in the back, then struck his stomach.”