Dubai: A transit passenger has been jailed for three months for assaulting a policeman who tried to handcuff him after he refused to have his luggage searched.
The 53-year-old Australian passenger had been flying via Dubai and had been offered a hotel stay after a technical glitch forced the international carrier with whom he was flying to Sydney to delay the trip for a day in July.
Having been deplaned after four hours of waiting on board the carrier that was supposed to take off at 8.30am, the Australian and other passengers were provided with a hotel stay near Dubai International Airport.
When asked by inspectors to have his luggage searched, the Australian passenger turned rowdy and refused to place his luggage in the scanning machine.
After failing to talk him into having his luggage searched, customs inspectors called up policemen present at the airport.
As the policeman tried to convince the passenger to have his luggage searched, the defendant angrily refused and said that he had been on a long flight.
When a police lieutenant tried to handcuff the suspect to take him to for questioning, the suspect the policeman by his shirt and violently assaulted him. The two men fell down and the policeman sustained injuries on his knee and ankle.
The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the Australian of assaulting the policeman and injuring him while he was carrying out his duty.
The accused, who was sentenced in absentia, also faces a deportation order.
The policeman said customs inspectors informed him about the passenger’s refusal to have his luggage searched.
“He was very angry and shouted loudly. When asked why he was refusing to be searched, he replied angrily because he had been on a very long flight and had been repeatedly searched. Once my supervisor instructed me to handcuff him, the accused grabbed me [by] the shirt and resisted arrest. We both fell down and I was injured when he assaulted me. However, we managed to restrain him and took him into custody,” the policeman told prosecutors.
A customs inspector said the accused turned unnecessarily angry and shouted loudly at them when they repeatedly asked him to put his luggage in the scanner.
The defendant is entitled a retrial.
