Man murders girlfriend's ex-lover out of revenge, gets death sentence

The couple has been charged with murder, consuming drugs and having sex out of wedlock.

The Abu Dhabi Court of Appeal upheld an earlier ruling by a lower court which handed down the execution sentence to the Tunisian national after he was found guilty of premeditated murder.
The expat was convicted of murdering his girlfriend's former partner and received a death sentence. His Canadian girlfriend, also involved in the crime, faces 25 years in jail. 
Official court documents revealed the 28-year-old Canadian woman gave her Tunisian boyfriend a knife along with the work address of her former partner. She also went ahead and shared the time when he would be alone. 
Prosecutors said the Tunisian man went to the man's office located in Khalidiya area of Abu Dhabi and slashed the throat of the 28-year-old Egyptian before strangling him to death. The murder occurred on May 21, 2014.
Prosecutors charged the couple with murdering the Egyptian man, consuming drugs, and having sex out of wedlock.
The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance had earlier sentenced the Tunisian to death and his girlfriend to 25 years in jail after they were found guilty of murder.  But the pair had challenged the ruling denying their connection to the man's death. 
They had earlier told the appeal court that they only confessed to murdering under police threats and torture. 
"I didn't know the victim. Until now, I did not even know how he looked. The first time I heard his name was during interrogation," said the Tunisian.  
He added: "I confessed to the murder during police interrogation only after officers assaulted and threatened me to confess."
An eyewitness told the court the Canadian had aborted her former lover's baby before he left her for a Moroccan woman. This began a series of disputes between the former lovers which prompted the woman to take revenge on him. 
ismail@khaleejtimes.com 

• Abu Dhabi