Dubai A British expatriate pleaded not guilty to intentionally murdering his wife with a hammer following a heated argument over financial issues, a court heard on Wednesday.

Dubai prosecutors have accused the 61-year-old British suspect, Francis Mathew, a former Gulf News staff member, of hitting his wife with a hammer twice on her forehead and intentionally killing her at 7am on July 4.

Prosecutor General Mohammad Ali Rustom, Head of the Family and Juveniles Prosecution at the Dubai Public Prosecution, according to the accusation sheet, has asked the Dubai Court of First Instance to implement the toughest punishment applicable [a death sentence as per article 332 of the UAE’s Penal Code].

“Not guilty,” was all what Mathew was heard telling presiding judge Urfan Omar in courtroom three on Wednesday morning.

The charges were read from Arabic to English language via court senior translator Mohammad Aslam to the suspect, who was brought to court in his white prison dress.

Prosecutors said the suspect intentionally murdered his wife by striking her with the hammer following a heated and intense argument at the couple’s house in Umm Suqeim.

Dubai police’s forensic examiner said the victim sustained fractures and bled from the head.

A lieutenant colonel told prosecutors that police were notified about the incident on July 4 at 5:45pm when an ambulance was dispatched to the location and onsite investigations revealed that a murder had taken place in the villa.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Mathew’s lawyer Ali Abdullah Al Shamsi asked the presiding to adjourn the case until he studies the case and reviews statements of prosecution witnesses.

“We have no requests to place before the court yet. The defence will revise the prosecution witnesses’ statements and reports of the forensic examiners and crime scene investigators. Then we would provide the court with our requests,” lawyer Al Shamsi told the three-judge bench.

The lieutenant colonel said: “The suspect was present at the crime scene when police and paramedics arrived. The suspect claimed that he left to go to work at 8am and when he returned home at 5pm he found her dead on bed. Onsite inspection found a bloodstain in the corridor and another one at the door of the bedroom where the victim was found dead and partly undressed. The victim had a severe injury on her forehead with a pool of blood around her … it was quite clear that the place had been turned upside down purposely. The husband was taken in for questioning as he was the primary suspect. Initially, he denied his involvement but further investigations revealed that he had killed her.

“During questioning, the suspect said he started facing financial difficulties two years ago. A week before the incident, the suspect told his wife that they had to evict the villa because the landlord had reconstruction plans … and that he would rent a flat because it's cheaper. When she refused, they had a heated argument and a fight, said the suspect. He claimed that she repeatedly provoked him, belittled him and told him that he has to provide money … on the night of July 3, they had an intense argument over moving out. After he went to bed at 11pm, the victim woke him up at 2.30am and continued arguing with him verbally. The suspect claimed that he avoided her and moved to the sitting room … the next morning at 7am she came into the sitting room and repeated the same thing before he moved to the kitchen. The wife followed him into the kitchen where she pushed him, according to the suspect. He then grabbed the hammer from the kitchen table and followed her to the room where she was on the bed. He struck her twice on her head. After she bled and he realised that she died, he panicked and did not know what to do … thereafter he turned the content of the bedroom upside down to make it seem like she had been killed in a house robbery. Then he claimed that he showered, left the house and got rid of the hammer in a nearby garbage bin before heading to work … when he returned home 5.15pm, he called the police,” the officer told the prosecutors.

The villa’s gardener was quoted as telling the prosecutors that he chatted with Mathew about the weather when he was leaving the house.

The next hearing will be on October 25.