Abu Dhabi is not crime free. It just seems like it.

Violence is rare. Murder is particularly unusual.

Someone attacking his three roommates with a chainsaw and a cleaver, and chopping them into tiny bits … just doesn’t happen here.

Except when it does.

The head on the web story is fairly salacious. “Chainsaw killer who chopped up Abu Dhabi roommates was ‘insane’.”

You think?

I’m a bit surprised this sort of thing doesn’t happen a bit more often.  Not saying this should be a chainsaw massacre center, but we’ve got a lot of guys here living far from home, among strangers, not making much money, in cramped housing … the wonder is that we have so few guys who lose it like this.

When the story was pitched at the budget meeting, at The National, one editor said: “Where do you even get a chainsaw in Abu Dhabi?” The city not having all that many trees. And someone suggested: “Ace Hardware?”

We do have a couple of those.

An interesting aspect of this — and we do not identify the “giant laborer’s” country of origin — is that the “man’s tribe” should pay Dh600,000 (about $170,000) in “blood money” as directed by “Sharia law.”

Which means the murderer was a Muslim (as were the victims) and probably came from within a few hours flight from here. Horn of Africa, perhaps. Yemen. Maybe Iraq, southern Iran.

A real-life Chainsaw Massacre here in the UAE. Will be a long time before we have another.