Dubai: A 19-year-old Emirati policeman was sentenced to three months in jail after he was found guilty of stealing a suspect's mobile phone from a safety box.
M.E. was convicted by the Dubai Court of First Instance, which also fined him Dh2,000.
Prosecution records said the mobile phone in question belonged to a Moroccan suspect who had been detained at the Anti-narcotics Department of Dubai Police.
The Moroccan suspect had placed his phone in the detention centre's safety box pending the conclusion of investigations in his case.
According to the charges, M.E. abused his duty as an anti-narcotics policeman and stole the phone from the safety box.
The primary judgement, which was pronounced by Presiding Judge Fahmi Mounir Fahmi, remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
Discovery
An Omani policeman, who was responsible for the safety box, then testified that nothing had been missing from the safety boxes when he checked them during his morning shift.
"Around noon-time my supervisor asked me to return the mobile phone to the Moroccan suspect… When I opened the safety box, the mobile phone was missing. I checked the other safety boxes to ensure that the mobile phone had not been mistakenly placed under someone else's name. But I didn't find the phone," the Omani policeman told prosecutors.
"Immediately I informed my supervisor… later I came to know that M.E. got arrested after the phone was [found] in his possession."
