Dubai: A farmer and an unemployed man have been cleared of using a screwdriver to break into a tourism agency office and steal Dh19,000 in cash.
The 40-year-old Pakistani farmer, J.M., and his 53-year-old countryman, J.D., pleaded not guilty and denied the accusation of breaking in and theft when they defended themselves before the Dubai Court of First Instance.
Citing lack of corroborated evidence, presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi acquitted the duo on Wednesday.
Prosecutors had charged the suspects with forcing their way into the office and stealing the cash after midnight.
J.D. strongly refuted the accusations contending that during the 30 years that he has been living in Dubai, he had never broken the law.
“This happened a long time ago. I was tried and acquitted by the court in an earlier trial,” J.D. said as he provided Al Shamsi with a copy of the previous ruling.
The agency’s Jordanian owner alleged to prosecutors that the incident happened shortly after he left the cash in a drawer in November 2012.
“I kept the money in a bag that I kept in the drawer… I did not lock the drawer properly. I went home and the next morning I called my secretary and asked her to send my Filipino assistant to deposit the cash in the bank. The assistant told me that the money was missing. When I went to check, I discovered that the outside door was damaged. Someone had broken into the office,” he claimed.
A police lieutenant claimed that primary interrogations revealed that J.M. and J.D. had been involved in similar thefts.
“J.M. was detained in Abu Dhabi for his involvement in a crime of a similar nature. The farmer was brought in for investigations, during which he admitted that he and J.D. broke into the agency after midnight and stole the cash. He alleged that they split the money,” claimed the lieutenant.
Wednesday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
