The Supreme Criminal Appeals Court yesterday upheld the life sentence of a labourer who was found guilty of stabbing his best friend to death.
The 43-year-old Pakistani man had earlier denied in court killing Mudassir Zarif Mohammed with a kitchen knife in a drunken rage, despite admitting to the frenzied attack during police investigations.
Last month, the High Criminal Court concluded its four-month-trial by convicting the appellant of premeditated murder, and ordered his deportation after completing his 25-year sentence.
The defendant soon took to the appeals court to contest the life sentence, with his lawyers arguing that the story recounted before the court presented an incomplete picture of what had actually happened.
“The defence argues that the appellant did not intend to kill the victim, and claims that the Public Prosecution’s case did not include a single piece of proof that he had planned on it,” read yesterday’s appeal verdict.
“His attorneys further claimed that the defence was not allowed to exercise its duty to the fullest, as judges had not summoned the witnesses they had requested.”
The GDN earlier reported that the two men were best friends for more than 10 years, and had worked in several Arab countries together before coming to work in Bahrain.
On the night of the tragic murder, the two men merrily went drinking, but the appellant’s temper exploded after being told that the victim badmouthed his family members.
The quarrel broke out when the expat learned that his best friend had hit his older brother, with whom he shared the labour accommodation, and insulted his mother and sister.
After confronting the victim, who admitted to insulting the appellant’s family, the appellant ran to the kitchen and slipped a knife into his pocket, then threw himself at the victim and stabbed him.
The knife pierced the 47-year-old Pakistani victim’s heart and tore one of his lungs, leaving left behind a 2.5-cm-wide wound on the left side of his chest, the medical examiner noted in the autopsy.
Following the bloody attack, the appellant reportedly ran out of the apartment and wandered the streets aimlessly, until he was located and arrested by policemen.
Though he denied planning the killing ahead of time, he told judges that he had been drunk at the time of the incident, which led him to seriously injure the victim in his state of rage.
“Restrain him, he’s holding a knife!” were the victim’s last words, according to his roommates who were trying to stop the appellant’s assault.
In a previous hearing, a 23-year-old housemate of the victim said he tried to apply first aid to the victim after the attack, but it was to no avail.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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