The Court of First Instance on Monday cleared a Pakistani man of killing a compatriot man by pouring petrol on the latter and setting him on fire.

The court bench, presided by Judge Hamad Abdel Latif Abdel Jawad, found the 26-year-old jobless defendant not guilty of the charge of premeditated murder for lack of solid evidence.

The court also relied on the testimonies of witnesses who denied seeing the defendant on the crime scene that night in February last year.

A police lieutenant told the prosecutor that they were informed about a man who had suffered serious burns after someone poured some inflammable substance on him and fled the scene in Hor Al Anz area. The scene was outside a building where the victim and a friend went to have sex with an Ethiopian prostitute.

The defendant claimed during police interrogation that the burns on his foot resulted from hot oil poured mistakenly by someone in his house. The victim’s friend, a Pakistani driver aged 51, said that he went with the victim to have sex with the prostitute that night. He later went down and waited for the victim in his car. Just before 3am, the victim came and was totally burnt. The victim asked his friend to take him to a hospital. The victim was in a serious condition and could hardly speak.

The 24-year-old Ethiopian prostitute, who is an absconding maid, said during investigation that the victim came to her flat that night and walked out safe. She also said that the defendant, who was her regular customer, did not come to the flat that night.

The police officers could not take any statement from the victim at the hospital as he was in a very serious condition.

A police major, who is a senior expert in the General Directorate of Criminal Evidence, said that with the help of sniffer dogs, they could identify the defendant among other suspects as the owner of the shoes found on the crime scene. The major asked the defendant to put on the shoe and it was clear that his foot had similar burn marks which indicated that the accused was wearing the shoe when he got the burns. A forensic medicine expert said that the victim died of the severe burns.

The CID officers toured the petrol stations near the crime scene and all denied having seen the defendant buying petrol.