Dubai: An employee has been cleared of assaulting a traffic policeman by patting on his shoulder after he asked for his driving licence for having left his car parked illegally.
The traffic policeman saw a car with its engine on and parked in the middle of a street near a Dubai Metro Station in March.
When the policeman and his colleague went towards the car to book the driver, they found he was not in the vehicle. As one of the policemen opened the car’s door and switched the gear to parking mode, the 33-year-old Pakistani employee arrived there and introduced himself as owner of the car.
When the policeman asked him for his driving licence, he got angry and refused to present it, said records.
The suspect repeatedly refused to comply with policeman’s request to give him his driving licence and car registration and patted on the shoulder of one of the policemen.
The traffic policeman reported the matter to Dubai Police’s operation room and the suspect was summoned to the police station.
Citing lack of evidence, the Dubai Court of First Instance acquitted the suspect of assaulting the policeman.
The suspect pleaded not guilty in court.
The policeman told prosecutors that the incident happened shortly after the suspect returned to his car.
“We went to ask the driver to remove his illegally-parked car. When we found that the car owner had left it’s engine on, we shifted the gear to parking mode. When the suspect returned, he requested to be pardoned for parking his car wrongly. When we asked him to present his driving licence, he didn’t comply with it. We asked him persistently but he refused … then he told us that we had no jurisdiction to fine him. Then he patted on my shoulder repeatedly and claimed that he was calling the police operation room. We ordered him to move away his car, but he while pretending to be talking with the operation room, drove away in his car. We reported the matter to the operation room and he was summoned to the station,” he testified.
The ruling remains subject to appeal.
