Dubai Court Jails Four Men for Murdering a Site Guard to Steal Power Cables

Four men are standing trial at the Dubai Court of First Instance for allegedly killing a site guard after gagging him up to steal power cables.

According to Dubai public prosecution records, the incident happened on June 27. The four men – two Nigerians and two Pakistanis, aged between 29 and 39 – gagged the construction site guard with duct tape, ending up killing him. A case was registered at Al Rashidiya police station.

All the accused, charged with murder and attempted robbery, have been detained.

A 30-year-old Indian site supervisor said he was alerted about the incident at 5.40am. “I had a call from the manager. The latter said the sub-contractor had seen the victim lying down at the site. I went there and saw a crowd of workers. Some of them told me that they did not spot the guard at the access gate. They saw his body later.”

A police sergeant said they were informed about a death incident at the site of a building under construction in the International City at 6.30am. The victim was found lying with his face down.

“After investigation, we tracked down the four accused. The two Africans were arrested from Umm Hurair on June 29 at 1.20am. The other two men were apprehended around 1.55am the same day.

“The main accused (African) confessed how they had planned the robbery of power cables a few months prior to the incident. Their plan was to steal the cables and then re-sell them.

“They reached the site around 11pm and attacked the victim from behind. They tied him up and gagged him with duct tape to stop him from resisting and screaming.”

The two Pakistanis left the site shortly later. The two main accused also fled the scene after returning to the victim to remove the duct tape only to find he had just died.

“The main accused told me that he left the victim gagged for about 10 minutes before he found him lifeless,” the sergeant said.

One of the African defendants, who worked in the same site, had stolen the duct tape earlier from his workplace (a contracting company).

The next hearing has been scheduled for November 15.