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A labourer has been found guilty of stabbing his long-time best friend and roommate to death with a kitchen knife.
Following a four-month-long trial, the 43-year-old man was sentenced to life behind bars at the High Criminal Court yesterday and will be deported back to his home country of Pakistan after completing his sentence.
The two men had merrily gone drinking earlier one Thursday night only to find themselves in a bitter, bloody feud later on.
The court heard that the defendant had flown into a drunken fit of rage after being told that the victim had ‘badmouthed’ members of his family.
The bloody 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.
Details about the cause of the initial fight between the brother and 47-year-old victim were revealed during yesterday’s verdict.
“On the night of the killing, the defendant’s brother had just returned from Saudi Arabia, and asked the victim to give him the keys to a car owned by a friend of theirs,” read the ruling. “When he refused, the two started fighting.
“No one expected that on that night, everything would change, and that the two friends and colleagues’ relationship would collapse.”
The GDN earlier reported that after confronting the victim, who admitted to insulting his family, the defendant ran to the kitchen and slipped a knife into his pocket.
He then threw himself at the victim and plunged the blade into his chest, which pierced the heart and tore into one of his lungs.
The blade left behind a 2.5cm-wide wound on the left side of his chest, the medical examiner noted in the autopsy.
Following the attack, the defendant reportedly ran out of the apartment and wandered the streets aimlessly, until he was located and arrested by police.
Though he denied premeditating the killing, 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 47-year-old victim’s last words, according to his roommates who were trying to stop the assault.
In a previous hearing, a 23-year-old housemate of the victim said he tried to apply first aid to the victim, but it was to no avail.
Witnesses stated that the two men were best friends of more than 10 years and had worked in several Arab countries together before coming to work in Bahrain.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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