DUBAI // The Criminal Court has approved an early release request by a policeman who strangled to death a security guard during a robbery almost 20 years ago.
AA, from Pakistan, was 27 when he and four others carried out the robbery. The five men carefully plotted the raid on December 3, 1993, in which they strangled the security guard at Caprisun Arabian refreshments with a piece of electric wire before covering his head with duct tape. They made sure that he was dead before stealing Dh71,948.
Three of the men - AA, his fellow Pakistani policeman AK, who was 25, and the unemployed Sri Lankan AG, were originally sentenced to death.
However the sentences for AA and AG were commuted on appeal to life in prison. AK's death sentence was upheld by both the Appeals Court and the Cassation Court, though it is not clear whether he has been executed. The other two were sentenced to life in prison.
The Criminal Court heard on September 4 that AA had a letter from his prison's management vouching that he had been well behaved during his incarceration and that he had received a waiver from the son of the security guard.
AA will be released and deported.
salamir@thenational.ae