A 43-year-old Briton, charged with murdering his former girlfriend, was convicted by the Dubai Criminal Court yesterday and sentenced to 15 years in prison. MA, who worked as a manager in an interior design firm, will also be deported after serving the sentence.

When the verdict was pronounced yesterday, MA looked shocked and cast a surprised look at his lawyer Yousuf Al Hammadi, who seemingly gave him a nod of reassurance.

The Public Prosecution had accused MA of killing South African KW by hitting her with a baseball bat on the head. The case, originally filed by the victim's brother, had been going on for more than a year and a half. The murder took place in August 2008.

MA, who attended all the hearings, had addressed the court in broken Arabic in one of them, denying his charge and asking for acquittal. In earlier sessions, the court heard that MA and KW had had an affair for five years during which the victim used to live in MA's villa. But MA wanted to end the affair after he came to know another woman called Natalia.

On the day of the crime, MA and KW met in the bar at Salam Hotel and he said he noticed she was drunk. He wanted to talk to her but she quarreled with him and rushed out.

The court was told that MA followed her until she arrived at her new residence, where he hit her three times on her head with a baseball bat. Then he put KW's body in her car and drove to the desert, where he put it in a bag. He then carried the body to his boat and threw it in the sea after tying weights to the bag.

However, the defence denied the account, saying it was the victim who tried to hit the defendant at her residence but fell and hit her head on the edges of a marble staircase. KW was last seen in August 2008 and her body has never been found. She had been staying in the UAE for seven years and was working as an events manager.

MA has repeatedly denied the murder but confessed that he quarreled with the victim over money. He said he did not know what had happened to her. Speaking to the BBC from his prison cell earlier, he had said: "I wish I knew where she was. I am innocent and I want to prove it. I've been in jail for 12 months based only on suspicion." MA can appeal his conviction and the sentence at the Dubai Court of Appeals. The prosecution, too, can appeal against the sentence if it chooses to.