Dubai court cuts sentences in Chechen slaying

The Dubai Court of Appeal reduced the jail terms of an Iranian clerk and a Tajik businessman for aiding and abetting the assassination of Chechen rebel leader Sulim Yamadayev from 25 years to three.

By Marie Nammour

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Published: Wed 22 Dec 2010, 4:00 PM

Last updated: Mon 6 Apr 2015, 1:57 PM

Presiding Judge Mustapha Shinawi said while pronouncing the verdict that the primary court’s sentence had been overturned. The two defendants, both aged 38, would be jailed for three years and deported afterwards.

The verdict was reached in consensus with Judges Saeed Salem Bin Sarm and Ahmed Al Mutaweh.

The reduction in the jail sentences followed a letter of waiver from the victim’s blood heirs in which they relinquished their rights to pursue any criminal or civil case against the defendants.

Defence counsel Abdullah Madani and Dr Zaher Mohammed Zaher had earlier presented the court panel with the original copy of the waiver signed by Yamadayev’s brother Eissa on behalf of the victim’s family members of all their personal rights in the case. The waiver was authenticated by the UAE Embassy and the Foreign Affairs Ministry in Moscow and the UAE Ministry of Exterior Affairs here.

The waiver involves both defendants and other wanted suspects still at large.

Madani had said at the time that they would be working on cancelling the international warrant issued against the other suspects, believed to be four in number and still at large.

Madani, representing the Iranian defendant, earlier dismissed in his defence arguments the confessions given by his client during interrogation saying they were extracted with coercion.

The Dubai Police Criminal Lab’s report said that the DNA of one of the pieces of evidence like fingerprints and skin flakes lifted from a bag in which the murder tool was allegedly hidden matched that of the Iranian defendant.

Madani questioned the results of the DNA tests done by the Dubai Police Criminal Lab. ‘The criminal evidence report also said that apart from the Iranian’s, unidentified fingerprints were also lifted from the gun bag. How come the lab could not determine to whom the other unknown DNA belonged?’

Madani also argued that his client did neither have a driving licence nor a car at the time of the incident. ‘He is just a horse tamer who did not have any idea about what was going on.’

The Iranian and the Tajik were sentenced to 25 years each in prison by the Court of First Instance in April and ordered to be deported for aiding and abetting Yamadayev’s assassins. They pleaded not guilty to the charge of abetting the crime.

Yamadayev was shot in the back of the head in late March last year as he stepped out of his four-wheel-drive in the basement of Jumeirah Beach Residence in which he lived with his wife and six children in an apartment.

A lieutenant had earlier claimed that the Iranian gave the mastermind in the assassination lift in his vehicle several times, while the Tajik helped the killer flee the country.

The two accused have served 17 months in provisional detention so far.

According to Article 332 of the Federal Penal Law, the penalty should be imprisonment of a minimum period of one year if the victim’s blood heirs relinquish their right to pursue the punishment —as per the Shariah law — at any time of the trial.

mary@khaleejtimes.com

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