DUBAI // A runaway maid killed the man who convinced her to abscond from her sponsor and become a sex worker after he attacked her in a drunken rage and blamed her for allowing a prostitute to escape from his brothel.
The Dubai Criminal Court was told that in the early hours of August 9 this year the victim, F A, arrived at a flat in Oud Al Mutaina where he met three Bangladeshis, NM, 25, and MA, 28, both women, and H S, 28.
F A, whose age and nationality was not in records, was drunk and began to shout at them. He then took a knife and stabbed N M from behind in her right shoulder. The woman was then able to grab the knife and stab F A in his upper left thigh before fleeing the apartment.
“When F A arrived two women and a man opened up,” said AH, who went with FA to the flat. “He started screaming and hitting them. Seconds later he asked for a knife and stabbed the woman with it. When then happened I ran away,” he said.
Pakistani R M, 26, was walking to a fast food restaurant at nearly 5am on August 9 when he saw A H running toward him. “He stopped me and asked for my phone, mumbling that two women and a man had murdered someone in building number 50,” said R M, adding that as he reached for his phone A H ran off.
“I traced the blood to a flat on the first where the door was open and I could see a pool of blood, I got scared and called police,” he said
Lieutenant M R A, 31, said investigations lead to the arrest of A H who provided police with the identities N M, M A and H S.
On August 11, M A was arrested and confessed to being present at the time of murder. “She told us she was there on the orders of the victim and said H S had brought the knife after a heated argument between the victim and NM, which he handed to N M and she used it to stab the victim,” testified M R A.
The following day N M was arrested in Al Ain.
“She said she came to Abu Dhabi to work as a maid but the victim lured her into absconding and working as a prostitute. On the day of murder he held her responsible for the escape of one of the prostitutes and demanded she pays him Dh6,000 to make up for his loss,” said M R A.
HS was arrested on August 12. Prosecutors charged N M with premeditated murder and H S with aiding and abetting N M in murder and running a brothel. M A was charged with working as a prostitute.
The case has been adjourned until a later date.
salamir@thenational.ae
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
Is it worth it? We put cheesecake frap to the test.
The verdict from the nutritionists is damning. But does a cheesecake frappuccino taste good enough to merit the indulgence?
My advice is to only go there if you have unusually sweet tooth. I like my puddings, but this was a bit much even for me. The first hit is a winner, but it's downhill, slowly, from there. Each sip is a little less satisfying than the last, and maybe it was just all that sugar, but it isn't long before the rush is replaced by a creeping remorse. And half of the thing is still left.
The caramel version is far superior to the blueberry, too. If someone put a full caramel cheesecake through a liquidiser and scooped out the contents, it would probably taste something like this. Blueberry, on the other hand, has more of an artificial taste. It's like someone has tried to invent this drink in a lab, and while early results were promising, they're still in the testing phase. It isn't terrible, but something isn't quite right either.
So if you want an experience, go for a small, and opt for the caramel. But if you want a cheesecake, it's probably more satisfying, and not quite as unhealthy, to just order the real thing.
