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29 March 2024

Two Omanis get life for killing Emirati

Hadi Dhafir Al-Ahbabi (SUPPLIED)

Published
By Staff

An Omani court sentenced two local men to life in jail after they were convicted of murdering a young Emirati man, upholding a life sentence issued earlier by another court in the Gulf country, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The court in Buraimi near the border with the UAE supported a sentence by a court in the northeastern Omani town of Ibri in December 2010 after it was overturned by Oman’s supreme court last year.

The supreme court rejected the first sentence and decided to refer the case to Buraimi court following an appeal by the two defendants.

“Buraimi’s criminal court upheld the earlier verdict and sentenced the two Omanis to life in prison,” the UAE Arabic language daily Alittihad said.

It said the supreme court took that decision after an appeal by the convicts and the prosecutor, who is demanding tougher punishment for premeditated murder.

The two unnamed defendants were sentenced to life in jail after they were convicted of murdering the 20-year-old Hadi Dhafir Al-Ahbabi in Buraimi.

The court in Ibri issued its verdict on the two, aged 35 and 58 years, after several sessions following the murder of Ahbabi in August 2009.

The defendants had confessed to killing Ahbabi after he visited them in Buraimi for traditional treatment of unspecified illness.

“They dumped his body in the desert but it was found later…Ahbabi’s relatives then demanded an autopsy on the body before its burial in the UAE.…the autopsy revealed that he was strangled,” Alittihad said.

It said the two had apparently murdered Ahbabi for theft as they seized his car and sold it after the crime. It quoted the father after the verdict in December 2010 as saying he would appeal at Omani courts for a tougher sentence.