Not intentionally Sciolistes
They departed with a p1ss poor, probably loss making, revenue load to a destination that was, presumably, below weather minima, they were presumably able to legally depart because they had an available alternate.
They were already on a 12.25hr nighttime FDP, rather than use their available alternate they flew around in circles for some 2 hours burning up valuable allowable FDP hours, expensive fuel and engine hours.
I don't know the allowable nighttime (UAE) FDP for 2 sectors but by this time they would have been up to something like a 14.25hr FDP and they still hadn't achieved anything, they still had the 55 pax on board that they departed with, the destination weather was still sh1te and had the flight not had such a catastrophic end where was it supposed to be heading ... It seems that there was no game plan?