Picture shown is for illustrative purposes only.

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A taxi driver fed up of working upon orders from his cousin embroiled in a dispute with him and knifed him to death, a jury heard on Tuesday.

The Asian defendant, 40, butchered the compatriot victim inside the latter’s bedroom in Hor Al Anz area at around 1am on June 11. He stabbed him several times with the intention of killing him, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors demanded he be awarded the toughest penalty applicable for premeditated murder. He argued that he acted in self defence. The Criminal Court adjourned the hearing till Oct.27 to find him a lawyer.

The victim’s Pakistani flatmate –an agricultural engineer- said, “I woke up to the victim screaming. I saw the defendant stabbing him. I seized him to stop him. I asked him the reason. He said ‘It happened.”

The engineer sent another flatmate –a driver- to call out for help. Someone called the police and ambulance. “The bloodstained defendant sat outside reiterating that ‘the (victim’s) brain was not working,” said the driver.

An Emirati captain narrated that he rushed to the crime scene and found the victim’s body lying face up on bedroom floor with wounds on the chest and stomach. There was a bloodstained knife beside the body’s feet.

The defendant was sitting at the flat’s door. He had a cut under his right knee. “The engineer told me the defendant barged into their bedroom and stabbed the victim. He grabbed the knife from him and forced him out.

“The engineer said the victim was not the one who inflicted a stab wound on the defendant’s knee. I met the defendant in hospital and questioned him. He confessed he stabbed the victim with a motive to kill him.

 “He contended that the victim habitually mistreated him. And that the victim brandished a knife, shouting at him and ordering him to clean the bedroom. This prompted him to stab the victim’s chest several times.”