RTA employees plead not guilty to leaking video

Dubai: Two Roads and Transport Authority employees pleaded not guilty to leaking video clips showing a traffic policeman being run over by a speeding car in the Airport Tunnel, on Sunday.

Public Prosecution records said the Emirati suspects, a 50-year-old employee and a 24-year-old engineer, apologised to the Emirati policeman's family and said they didn't have bad intention to demean him.

"No I didn't to it ... I didn't defame or belittle the deceased ... I am not guilty," the employee told Presiding Judge Fahmi Mounir of Dubai Court of First Instance yesterday.

The engineer also pleaded innocent.

The 50-year-old was charged with breaching secrets when he permitted the engineer to watch the accident footage from the Roads and Transport Authority's (RTA) control room and allowed him to record it on his mobile phone.

The 24-year-old was charged with aiding and abetting the employee.

The Public Prosecution charged the 50-year-old with belittling the deceased by criticising the way he treated the accident.

The 52-year-old brother of the deceased, F.M., testified: "Five days following the death, the father of the person who caused the accident told me that someone had been circulating the accident footage ... I heard voices of mockery and giggling."

'Apology'

A 25-year-old relative, S.D., confirmed F.M.'s statement and told his interrogators that he saw the suspects when they visited the family and apologised for what happened without confessing that they did it.

"Two weeks later, the engineer told me he recorded the footage and forwarded it without bad intention to a third party whom he accused of circulating the footage ... the voice of mockery came from the 50-year-old suspect who phoned me later, apologised and pleaded forgiveness after he said he was mistaken but didn't have bad intention," S.D. testified.

Initial interrogation revealed that the two suspects were involved in the case. A hearing will be held soon.