Dubai: A tanker driver has been cleared of jabbing his co-worker’s eye with a screwdriver and causing him a permanent disability after they brawled in a parking lot.
The 30-year-old Pakistani, M.N., who drives a water tanker, was said to have arrived at a pump station wanting to fill his tanker with salty water when he quarrelled with his countryman driver, M.R., and jabbed his eye following a heated argument in July.
Citing lack of corroborated evidence, the Dubai Court of First Instance acquitted M.N. of assaulting M.R. with a screwdriver and injuring him.
M.N. pleaded not guilty and denied assaulting M.R. when he defended himself in court contending that the victim injured himself accidentally.
M.R. sustained a 35 per cent permanent disability in his right eye following the assault.
M.R. alleged that the incident happened while he was doing his friend [also a tanker driver] a favour and watching his tanker while filling it with salty water in Jebel Ali.
“My friend asked me to wait until his tank gets filled with salty water at the station … in the meantime, the suspect came and parked his tanker beside my friend’s tanker. He asked me to move the tanker but I told him that I was not the driver and told him to wait. The suspect got irritated and we had a heated argument. Then he went to his tanker and took out a screwdriver and angrily jabbed it in my face. I fell down unconscious. Witnesses who saw what happened restrained the suspect and prevented him from running away until the police came and apprehended him,” M.R. testified to prosecutors.
However, the court acquitted M.N. after his lawyer argued that his client did not assault the victim and did not attack him with a screwdriver.
The lawyer also asked the court to dismiss M.N.’s charges due to lack of evidence.
Sunday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
