Obaida's dad looked in car, didn't see body

Eight-year-old Jordanian boy Obaida Al Aqrabawi’s alleged rapist and killer on Monday requested the Dubai Court to hear his case in closed session.

The court, however, did not announce its verdict in this regard.

The accused, 48, asked the jury, headed by Judge Erfan Omar Atiyah, to allow him to speak to the defence lawyer.

The man, also a Jordanian national, allegedly raped and murdered the Sharjah-based boy in May 2016.

The defence lawyer Omran Darwish, who was appointed by the court following the previous lawyer requested to be discharged from the case, asked the court to hear the testimony of the forensic doctor. The court adjourned the case till July 25.

The victim was last seen on May 20 outside his father’s car repair garage in the Industrial Area of Sharjah when the accused came to the garage.

The court listened to the testimonies of officers who investigated and arrested the accused following a complaint lodged by the boy’s father about his child went missing. They all noted that the accused was in a normal condition when he confessed to committing this heinous crime.

It was told during the court hearing that the accused had kept the boy’s body in his car’s rear seat when the father and his brother – boy’s uncle – came to the accused’s flat in search of the boy.

As Obaida’s father testified in previous hearing, the accused offered coffee to him and his brother while the little boy’s body was hidden in the culprit’s car.

Moreover, Obaida’s father was very suspicious regarding the accused to the extent that he even looked through the tinted glass of his car when he got off the flat, but did not saw the body in the rear seat.

A police officer, who interrogated the accused, testified the that the “murderer admitted that after kidnapping the boy from his father’s garage, he raped and killed him in Al Mamzar area before driving back to Sharjah at dawn. He drove to his flat to get money, as he did not have any. He said that the boy’s body was still on the car’s rear seat. He got into his flat and after a couple of minutes, Obaida’s father knocked at the door.”

Obaida’s father, who was accompanied by his brother, searched the flat but did not find the body.

“After getting down the building, I looked through the car’s window glass but did not see the boy’s body. The car’s windows were tinted,” the father said in his testimony.

“The accused, however, told us that the boy’s body was on the car’s rear seat when Obaida’s father and his uncle came and searched his flat. That was his confession… I did not personally look through the car’s glass,” testified First Lieutenant Hamad Saif when asked how the boy’s father and uncle did not see Obaida’s body in the car.

The accused admitted before officers that after sodomising the boy the two got off again to the front seats where the boy started asking him repeatedly about the scooter.

As the boy did not get the scooter, he threatened the accused of telling his father about what happened, the accused had told officers after his arrest.

“The accused said during investigations that he did not answer his question and resumed drinking alcohol. Then he started thinking what he would do with the boy’s threats. He decided to kill him, so he asked the boy to go to the back seat and so he did. He suffocated him with his hands before using a red ‘ghutra’ – head scarf. After killing the boy, he resumed drinking until early hours of the morning and before driving back to his flat in Sharjah to get money,” testified the officer before the court.

Once Obaida’s father had left the accused’s house, the killer drove to his brother’s house in Dubai and on the way he got rid of the body in Al Warqa area.

He also threw away the boy’s belongings in the same area.

 Police found the boy’s shoes about 800 meter away from the body.

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