Two murderers who hunted their victim across three countries to seek revenge and stabbed him to death in a dark Budaiya alley have lost their appeal.
The two Pakistanis were found guilty of premeditated murder and sentenced to life in prison in April by the High Criminal Court. The court also ruled to confiscate the murder weapons: two kitchen knives.
They took to the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court to contest the penalty, but judges upheld the 25-year sentence, and ordered to deport them after completing their time behind bars.
The appellants, aged 25 and 28, also confessed to killing the victim’s brother in Greece over the same long-running feud, over his alleged involvement in the killing of their cousin, more than a decade ago.
Victim Wasif Ahmed had served 12 years in prison for the cousin’s murder, but was not forgiven by the man’s family, who made several attempts on his life. He later moved to Bahrain on a tourist visa, seeking safety with his other brother.
The two avengers were on the victim’s trail for six weeks, even following him to Saudi Arabia when he went to perform Umrah pilgrimage, and returning to Bahrain later.
On December 28, the duo surrounded the victim in a dimly-lit residential alley in Budaiya and attacked him with sharpened knives, only stopping their onslaught when he was dead.
Just three hours after the brutal murder, the two Pakistanis were arrested while they were attempting to flee the country via King Fahad Causeway after an alert was issued concerning the incident.
The GDN previously reported that the Public Prosecution described the killing as ‘an execution’.
In the initial trial, a medical examiner who inspected the crime scene and conducted the victim’s autopsy told judges that the victim was motionless on the ground just 20 seconds after the attack began.
He stated that Mr Ahmed sustained injuries to the head, face, chest, back, limbs and the area between his waist and arms, as well as fractures and both internal and external bleeding.
The doctor further observed an array of stab wounds all over the man’s body.
“The injuries that the victim suffered to his head alone were enough to kill him, without even taking into account all the other wounds he was left with,” he earlier testified.
Forensic experts found the victim’s blood on both the knife and the cleaver, and also recovered his blood from under the 25-year-old defendant’s fingernails and on the 28-year-old defendant’s trousers.
A young Egyptian barber who said he witnessed the murder also testified in the case.
He told the court that he was walking home from work while speaking to his mother on the phone and was on his way to buy a cup of karak chai when he heard screams coming from an alley. The Pakistani convicts have one more chance to appeal the life sentence at the Cassation Court.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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