UAE: MAID, LOVER SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR MURDER

The UAE’s top court sentenced a Bangladeshi housemaid and her lover to death after they were convicted of murdering a 36-year-old deaf-mute Emirati woman after robbing her house in the eastern town of Khorfakkan.
The two had confessed to killing Laila Khalfan Al Gawi by strangling her with a pillow and ropes after stealing more than Dh20,000 worth of jewelry from her house in Luluiya neighbourhood, where she had lived on her own.
They told court they had not planned to kill the woman but the prosecution decided it was a premeditated murder, prompting the court to sentence them to death.
They appealed the verdict by another court handed down the same sentence, prompting them to appeal with the Supreme Federal Court, which upheld that sentence.
Police arrested the fleeing maid and her boyfriend a few days after committing the murder in February 2011.
Wednesday’s (March 20) verdict is final but the execution, which is carried out in the UAE by a firing squad, has to be ratified by the country’s president.