Dubai: Two policemen have denied tapping into Dubai Police's network system and cancelling Dh3,650 worth of traffic violations, a court heard on Monday.
Prosecutors have charged the Emirati policemen, a 23-year-old first corporal and a 22-year-old first policeman, with abusing their office at Dubai Police's operation room and accessing the network to cancel their own traffic violations and those of others. When the suspects, 23-year-old S.A. and 22-year-old S.M., appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance, they pleaded not guilty and strongly rejected the charges. According to the charges sheet, the defendants used secret passwords of police staff at a special section authorised to cancel traffic fines to delete the information from the system.
A police lieutenant testified that an employee from the Roads and Transports Authority (RTA) came to him and informed him that he collected around Dh1,000 in traffic fines.
"The employee claimed to me that I collected the money and I needed to pay it to him to finalise 2008's budget before depositing the money with RTA. I informed him that I was unaware of that collected money… we headed a captain who informed the employee that I was not authorised to collect the traffic fine," added the lieutenant.
Primary investigations revealed that the suspects were involved in tapping into the network and cancelling the fines, according to prosecution records.
A policeman told prosecutors: "Our investigation revealed that S.A. and S.M. used the lieutenant's password and tapped into the network system to cancel the traffic violations. They also obtained other officers' passwords to do the same job. Based on the Deputy Commander of Dubai Police Chief's instructions we arrested the suspects who confessed to their guilt."
