Upset over bus timing change, guard stabs driver

A security guard allegedly tried to kill a driver, working in the same company, by stabbing him about 10 times while he was behind the steering wheel.
The 24-year-old Egyptian man is believed to have planned the attack and arranged for a knife which he hid under his clothes. He sat behind the driver intentionally in the bus to minimize the latter's ability to protect himself.
He faced a premeditated attempted murder charge in the Court of First Instance. 
The driver, a 35-year-old Jordanian, told the investigators that on June 16, 2015, he informed all the workers of the security services company that the bus departure would be earlier by half an hour to avoid traffic congestion.
"None of the employees or workers objected or complained except for the guard (on trial).
"But it was okay after I told him that those were the instructions of the company's administration and not mine.
"At 3:30 pm on August 18, 2015, I was waiting outside the workers' accommodation in Al Muhaisna, Al Qusais, when I spotted the guard staring at me.
I went to the nearby supermarket then came back to drive the bus," the victim recounted.
The guard then followed him and sat right behind him.
"He asked me whether I was going to the road or whether I went to Sharjah and spoke to his brother badly about him. I denied all of it and asked him to step off the bus explaining that I would go to the laundry.
"I was surprised when he suddenly brandished a knife and stabbed me in the neck and other parts of my body. I felt nothing after that, except when I woke up in hospital," the victim told the prosecutors.
He added that he thought the guard was angry with him because he had told the workers the bus timing changed.
 
A 25-year-old Pakistani guard said he saw the accused and the victim having a quarrel in the bus outside the company's accommodation before the accused stabbed the other man.
The forensic report showed the stab wounds the victim suffered from in the neck, chest and abdomen, could have been fatal for they were deep; but thanks to the timely surgeries and convenient treatment he survived.
 
The Court of First Instance had sentenced the guard to two months in jail and fined him Dh 5,000 in the present case.
However, the Court of Appeals quashed that ruling on the grounds that it was out of the court's jurisdiction (the Court of First Instance) to examine the case and returned the case to the public prosecution which referred it to the court again.
mary@khaleejtimes.com
 

• Dubai