Pinoy driver gets 15-year jail term for strangling woman in UAE

A Filipino driver in the United Arab Emirates was sentenced to 15 years in jail after a court found him guilty of strangling his girlfriend to death and dumping her body on the road. The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the 36-year-old Filipino identified only as E.J. of premeditated murder, the news site Gulf News reported over the weekend. “The accused will be deported after serving his punishment," Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad said. According to the report, the judge rejected a plea from the lawyer of the accused to modify the charge from premeditated murder to “beating which led to death." The lawyer had claimed the driver, who pleaded innocent and denied planning his Filipino girlfriend’s murder, did not intend to kill the woman who was identified only as E.A. The report did not say if the accused would appeal the verdict. An Emirati first lieutenant who investigated the killing had testified that the woman's body was found in the Al Twar 1 area. Court records showed that the killer had taken away all of the victim’s belongings, making it difficult to identify her. “He claimed during interrogation that on the day of the incident, he was present with [the victim]. He said they had a fight over money, and then he strangled her with the belt that she wore… She fell to the floor," the report quoted the investigator as saying. “The defendant confessed that he took her body in his car and drove to meet a friend in Al Twar… The friend didn’t show up and he dumped her body in front of a house then left," the first lieutenant added. Prosecutors accused the Filipino driver of planning the murder by sitting on the back seat of a car and strangling the woman, who was seated in front of the vehicle, the report said. But the driver disputed the account and said, “She is my friend… What happened is not as it was described by prosecutors," according to the Gulf News report. — JE/YA, GMA News