Divorcee guilty of using friend’s Emirates ID

Dubai: A divorcee has been found guilty of impersonation after presenting her friend’s Emirates ID to the police who stopped her following a complaint from her ex-husband.

The 33-year-old Emirati woman used someone else’s Emirates ID when she was stopped by the police and asked to present her personal identification papers in November 2014.

The Dubai Court of First Instance handed the accused a three-month suspended imprisonment on Sunday.

The 33-year-old had pleaded not guilty.

Citing grounds of leniency, presiding judge Mohammad Jamal suspended the imprisonment for a period of three years during which the crime should not be repeated.

A police corporal said the operations room was reported about a problem in Al Khawaneej area.

“A police patrol was dispatched. The complainant [an Emirati man] had called the police as he had been monitoring the defendant [his ex-wife] as he wanted to prove that she was with a stranger. I walked towards the woman and the stranger who was with her and asked them for identification papers. The defendant handed me an Emirates ID. The complainant [the ex-husband] immediately told me that the name was different. He told me his ex-wife’s name was not the same as on the ID she had given me. The defendant wore a niqab so I had to ask for back up for a policewoman to come and check her identification. We took the woman into custody once it was discovered that the ID she had presented did not belong to her,” said the corporal.

The defendant was cited as admitting to prosecutors that she presented the Emirates ID of another woman.

A police sergeant claimed: “When I asked the defendant if she was the owner of the ID she had presented, she said ‘yes’ and claimed that it was her name as well.”

Records did not mention why the ex-husband had complained against his ex-wife.

Sunday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.