Dubai: A worker has been accused of using playing cards and an ironing board to organise a public gambling game for pedestrians in front of stores, heard a court on Monday.
Policemen were patrolling in the market place at Naif area when they spotted a Pakistani worker, 31, and a crowd around an ironing board that had been set on the pavement for gambling in November.
According to the charges, the policemen watched the crowd and once they realised that the Pakistani man was among the organisers of the gambling game, they stepped in and apprehended him.
The crowd instantly ran away and disappeared.
While escorting the worker to the police station for questioning, the policeman who searched the Pakistani found in his pocket Dh1,550.
Prosecutors accused the suspect of organising a gambling game in public.
When he appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Monday, the suspect pleaded not guilty.
He contended before presiding judge Urfan Omar: “I didn’t gamble or organise a gambling game … I was among the crowd who had gathered around the game to watch. I was watching like others.”
The policeman told prosecutors that the incident happened while he and his partners were patrolling the Naif market at 8pm.
“We found a crowd of pedestrians gathered in a circle in front of shops … they were gambling and the suspect was standing beside the pedestrians looking left and right as if he was watching out the place to warn the operator in case police came. Once he saw us [police patrollers], he shouted ‘run … run’. He was arrested first but the rest absconded. When I searched him, he told me that he had Dh1,300 and then he changed his mind and told me Dh1,400 … however I found Dh1,550 in his pocket,” the policeman testified to prosecutors.
Presiding judge Omar adjourned the case until the suspect’s lawyer presents a defence on January 8.
