A BANGLADESHI man convicted of murdering a Bahraini imam inside a mosque will be executed as he lost his final appeal.
The 39-year-old muezzin (prayer caller) viciously beat Shaikh Abduljalil Hmood with a metal rod until he died after morning prayers on August 4 last year inside the Bin Shiddah Mosque in Muharraq, where they both worked.
He then dismembered him and was caught trying to dump the victim’s body parts in a scrapyard in Askar the following day.
He was found guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced to death by the High Criminal Court in November, while his accomplice, who helped dump the body, was jailed for 12 months.
The defendant lodged an appeal against the conviction at the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court, which was rejected.
He then filed a final appeal at Bahrain’s highest court, the Cassation Court, which yesterday upheld the death penalty.
“The defendant confessed to the charges and evidence presented by prosecutors was sufficient to find him guilty of the brutal murder,” read the Cassation Court ruling.
“The defendant planned and carried out the murder in cold blood.
“Therefore, the Cassation Court rejected the final appeal lodged against the death sentence.”
The defendant admitted during questioning that he used a butcher’s knife to dismember the imam’s body before stuffing the remains inside two barrels and trying to dispose them of at a scrapyard.
His accomplice previously denied wrongdoing and claimed he believed the victim’s body parts, which he was helping dispose of, were actually scrap.
A scrapyard employee who caught the defendant trying to dump the imam’s remains alerted police, the GDN previously reported.
He also revealed the killer had tried to buy his silence with a BD100 bribe.
In his confession to prosecutors, the muezzin said he murdered Shaikh Hmood, a father-of-10, because the latter had filed complaints against him at the Sunni Waqf (Endowment) Directorate.
noorz@gdn.com.bh
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