By Ali Al-Shouk
UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — Police have arrested four men on suspicion of the gang rape and murder of a young housemaid from Ethiopia.
The suspects were arrested following the discovery of a woman’s body last week on farmland in the Al-Daid region of Sharjah. The victim, an Ethiopian aged in her 20s, had suffered extensive wounds to her head.
Police believe she had been repeatedly struck with rocks until she died.
Sources at Sharjah Police said the woman had been working as a maid at a house in Khor Fakan in Sharjah and disappeared at the beginning of this month.
“She had been working for the three months before she disappeared from the house,” the source said. “She had no reason to disappear and no friends in the area.”
The source added: “Our investigations led us to the main suspect who is an Emirati and who has had a previous conviction for carrying out such a crime.”
During investigations the man confessed to the murder and said he had carried out the attack with three other men.
The source said the main suspect had previously been jailed for the rape and murder of a Pakistani teenage girl and had been sentenced to death for the crime.
However, after serving a number of years in jail he was then released and pardoned after paying blood money to his 13-year-old victim’s family.
According to the preliminary police investigations, the gang watched the housemaid for a number of days before kidnapping her. She was gagged and then repeatedly gang-raped.
Despite escaping from her attackers, the men hunted her down, raped her again and then killed her to prevent her identifying them to police, according to the source.
The men are being held in custody while the investigations continue.