Top Dubai court upholds Briton's murder life term

Dubai's highest court on Monday upheld the life sentence handed down against a Briton accused of killing his South African former lover, the lawyer for the victim's family said.

"The Dubai Court of Cassation upheld the judgment of the appeals court and convicted Mark Arnold of murder," said Hussain Al-Jaziri, the lawyer for relatives of Kelly Winter.

In December, the Dubai Court of Appeal sentenced Arnold, 42, to life in prison -- an equivalent under the UAE’s legal system to 25 years.

Winter's "family still hope that Mark's conscience will lead him to tell them where her body is so she can have a proper burial," Jaziri added.

Winter, 36, disappeared in August 2008 following a quarrel with Arnold. Prosecutors charged him with clubbing her to death with a baseball bat and dumping her body into the sea with weights attached.

He was spared the death penalty because her body was never found.

Arnold, who has been in custody since August 2008, was also given a one-month jail term for endangering the life of a Lebanese housemate of Winter by swinging a baseball bat at him when he was alerted to the argument between the two outside her villa.

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