Source : Khaleej Times
Two prosecution witnesses in the trial of a woman accused of butchering her lover in Al Ain and cooking his flesh to hide evidence of the crime, said they felt a foul smell coming out of the defendant’s flat just days before the murder was discovered.
The 37-year-old Moroccan woman – facing trial at the Al Ain Criminal Court of First Instance – allegedly stabbed to death her lover of the same nationality, and then sawed his corpse into three pieces. The incident occurred in November 2017.
During the latest hearing, the court heard from the prosecution witnesses, two Filipinos, who were residing in the neighbourhood of the Morrocan woman.
One of the women told the court that she didn’t know the defendant as she had not seen her before, and had felt a nasty smell emanating from her house.
“I smelt a stench coming from the defendant’s flat for some days,” she said.
The second Filipina, who is the roommate of the first witness, also admitted feeling the foul smell that filled the place.
She said she reported the matter to the watchman. She said the watchman told them that their neighbour said she had bought rotten fish which she had thrown in the garbage bin. But the Filipinos confirmed to the court that the smell was not of a fish.
Her lawyer, Khalid bin Jumhoor Al Ahbabi, earlier told the court that his client – who is a married woman and whose children live with their father in Morocco – had attacked the man in self-defence and that she had not planned to kill him.
According to Al Ahbabi, the defendant had been living in UAE for the last 10 years.
He said she met her lover, a 29-year-old single man, who also worked as a tailor at a clothing shop, seven years ago. He used to live near her house in Oud Tawba.
The woman had been hanging out with her lover and his friends at their shared accommodation till late night, he said. At around 3:00am on November 3, the man took her back to her house, as per the statement of some witnesses who saw them leave together from the gathering.
The same day, he called her in the afternoon and asked her to have lunch with him. When he arrived at her place, she welcomed him in. The man then expressed his desire to take her out on a trip to Jebel Hafeet.
According to the lawyer, she refused because she was in the midst of shifting to another flat and asked him to help her move the furniture. They ended up fighting over the issue and he insulted her, while slapping her face, the lawyer added.
He grabbed her hair and pulled her head down near a table. The woman spotted a knife lying on it and stabbed him in the chest,” he said.
On seeing the blood, the defendant panicked and didn’t know what to do with the body. She then cut it into three pieces and cooked the corpse. After some days, his friends reported him missing.
Police interrogated the Morrocan woman as she was the last person to have seen the man alive. When police searched her apartment, they found small human remains. The woman confessed that she had killed him following a scuffle.
The trial was adjourned to a future date.
