Dubai: A worker has been cleared of using playing cards and an ironing board to organise a public gambling game for pedestrians in front of stores.
Policemen were patrolling 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 case, 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.
On Thursday, the Dubai Court of First Instance acquitted the worker of organising a gambling game in public due to lack of evidence.
When he appeared in court, the 31-year-old pleaded not guilty.
He contended before presiding judge Urfan Omar that he 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,” he told the court.
A policeman testified to 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 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, 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.
Thursday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
