Dubai: A court agreed on Wednesday to translate the handwritten defence of the infamous Pink Panther gang’s suspected fourth member, who participated in the daring Dh14.74 million heist at Wafi City in 2007.
When he showed up before the Dubai Court of First Instance, the 34-year-old Serbian man, A.B., denied being linked to the armed robbery at Graf jewellery store on Wafi’s ground floor. The thieves used two stolen cars for the heist in April 2007.
A.B. refuted the accusation of having aided and abetted a number of unidentified robbers [some of whom who have been tried and others who remain at large] who stole two cars, drove into Wafi City at 9.45pm and brought down the jewellery shop’s glass front by crashing a car into it.
The robbers wore masks and used toy guns to terrorise shop attendants. They smashed the display cases with iron tools, snatched the contents and fled with jewellery worth Dh14,748,109.
“I have written the defence more than two weeks ago and handed it to the police but they told me that they do not translate written defence arguments. I want to provide my defence to the court,” A.B. told presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi.
“The court will translate your defence and reconvenes on October 19,” replied the presiding judge.
Prosecutors also accused A.B. of forging a Yugoslavian passport in the name of M.S. that he used to enter the UAE with a forged visa during the heist and then exited using the same travel document. He was also accused of entering the UAE illegally and staying here unlawfully as well.
“I used the Yugoslavian passport to enter the UAE … and I also used the same passport to travel out of Dubai,” he told the court earlier.
A police major testified to prosecutors that Dubai Police attended several Interpol meetings in Europe and provided them all available evidence and DNA findings and fingerprints lifted from the crime scene and two cars.
A police lieutenant said that in October 2015 he was commissioned to fly to Madrid and accompany A.B., who had been arrested in Spain.
