Dubai: A visitor won his appeal after a court reduced his one-year imprisonment to six months for removing price tags from adidas sporting gear and walking out of the outlet without paying.

The 30-year-old Moroccan visitor, J.A., and his countryman, A.Z., walked into an adidas outlet at one of the shopping malls, untagged a few shoes and shirts using a pair of scissors and left without paying in December.

In August, the Dubai Court of First Instance jailed the duo for two years each.

A.Z. was sentenced in absentia.

J.A. appealed the primary judgement and asked the Dubai Appeal Court to hand him a reduced punishment.

Citing grounds of leniency, presiding judge Eisa Al Sharif commuted J.A.’s two-year imprisonment to six months.

However, the accused will be deported following the completion of his jail term.

The outlet’s management discovered that some items were missing following an inventory, according to records, and CCTV cameras showed a group of men had stolen the missing items.

When the same group of men returned to the outlet to steal again using the same modus operandi, the security guard stopped one of them while the others fled, said records.

When he defended himself before the appellate court, J.A. pleaded guilty and requested leniency.

The defendants used scissors to cut the tags, and then took shoes and T-shirts and left the outlet without paying.

The outlet’s manager testified that CCTV cameras showed four men walking into the shop and committing the alleged theft.

“They walked in around 5.30pm. They removed the coded tags, put the shoes in a bag, and walked away without paying. A few days later we spotted them again at 7.30pm … we spotted them removing tags and trying to steal a pair of shoes. Three men walked out while the fourth failed to run away as the security guard restrained him. He also had a stolen shirt with him. The suspect whom we stopped offered to pay for what he had taken and the other items that they had stolen before that,” he said.

A policeman said they took A.Z. to the police station and further interrogations unveiled J.A.’s involvement in the heist.

J.A.’s appellate ruling remains subject to appeal within 25 days before the Cassation Court.