Dubai: A security guard lost his appeal and will spend three months in jail for using his friend’s Emirates ID and security card to watch the Emirates Rugby 7s games in Dubai in December.
The 38-year-old Nigerian security guard, E.O., handed a photocopy of his Emirates ID and security pass to his 31-year-old countryman, A.H., so the latter could enter the stadium and watch the games.
In March, the Dubai Court of First Instance jailed E.O. and A.H. for three months each after they pleaded guilty.
E.O. did not appeal his primary verdict, unlike A.H. who appealed his three-month imprisonment that he sought to have reduced.
The Dubai Appeal Court upheld A.H.’s three-month jail term on Wednesday.
E.O. was convicted of giving a copy of the Emirates ID and security card [provided by an organisational section at Dubai Police] to A.H. The latter was convicted of using the cards to enter the pitch.
Presiding judge Saeed Salem Bin Sarm said in court that the photocopied documents [used in the crime] will be seized.
A safety manager said the incident happened while he was carrying out some organisational procedures at the Rugby 7s stadium.
“I was doing some organisational procedures among security guards who had been commissioned to stand at certain checkpoints. When I asked A.H. for his identification card, he presented the security card that had someone else’s name. In order to double check that he was the right person, I asked him to show me his Emirates ID … and when he handed me a photocopy, I discovered it bore the details of another person. Then I called the police,” he said.
The defendants admitted to prosecutors that E.O. gave his security card and a copy of his Emirates ID to A.H. and allowed him to use them.
The appellate ruling remains subject to appeal before the Cassation Court within 30 days.
