Dubai // Two men were sentenced to life imprisonment yesterday and another nine were given jail terms of between 10 and 15 years for beating a man to death and burying him in a shallow grave.
Two Indian men, MS, 24, accused of being the ringleader of a bootlegging gang, and HS, 26, his deputy, were both sentenced to life at Dubai's Criminal Court of First Instance for killing a rival bootlegger, identified as "number 36". They attacked him with swords, machetes, pipes and wooden blocks.
Eight other Indians were sentenced to 15 years for murder, while a Pakistani driver was sentenced to 10 years.
Prosecutors said the men attacked the unidentified man, another bootlegger, in November 2008 behind the Samsung office in Jebel Ali and beat him to death. They then partially buried the body there.
The suspects all denied the murder charges.
"This was the strongest gang and after their arrest, increased security and police presence chased away all the alcohol bootleggers from the area," an investigating officer said last year.
Investigators said fierce competition had emerged between alcohol bootleggers in the area. The killers said during interrogation that they had warned the victim against selling alcohol in their area.
They said that they decided to teach him a lesson and went looking for him. The men said they had concealed metal rods and wooden planks around the area, and used them to attack "number 36" when they found him.
The attack was described as a haphazard, with gang members just trying to land a blow on the victim until he lay still.
Officers said one of the men said they checked to make sure the victim was dead and then buried him in a shallow grave before fleeing in a bus driven by the Pakistani.
Police searched the Jebel Ali Industrial Area until they found the killers, who were carrying swords, machetes and pipes.
When the men were arrested, they said had the weapons for self defence against other gangs.
"They said that they were protecting themselves from other alcohol bootleggers and they scared away people who tried to sell alcohol in their area," the officer said.