Dubai: The fourth member of the infamous Pink Panther gang, which carried out the daring Dh14.74 million-jewellery heist at Wafi City in 2007, has been jailed for 10 years.
The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the 34-year-old Serbian accused of involvement in the armed robbery at Graf jewellery store on Wafi’s ground floor during which the thieves used two stolen cars in April 2007.
According to Wednesday’s ruling, the court convicted the defendant of aiding and abetting a number of unidentified robbers [some of whom who have been tried and others who remain at large] who stole two cars, drove into Wafi City at about 10pm and brought down the jewellery shop’s glass front by crashing the car into it.
The robbers wore masks and used toy guns to terrorise shop attendants, according to court records, before they smashed the display cases with iron tools, snatched the contents and fled with jewellery worth Dh14.7 million.
Presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi said the defendant will be deported following the completion of his punishment.
The accused was also found guilty of forging a Yugoslavian passport that he used to enter the UAE during the heist and then exited using the same travel document. He entered the country illegally and stayed unlawfully.
The Serbian had pleaded not guilty and refuted any involvement in the heist.
“I used the Yugoslavian passport to enter the UAE … and I also used the same passport to travel out of Dubai,” he argued in court.
A police major said Dubai Police attended Interpol meetings in Europe and provided them with all available evidence and DNA findings and fingerprints lifted from the crime scene and two cars.
“The defendant’s fingerprints matched those that were lifted from other places that had been robbed using the same modus operandi in Monaco, Switzerland and Serbia. Records confirmed that he had entered Dubai using the forged Yugoslavian passport and identity. Police interrogations unveiled that he had stayed [in 2007] with another Bosnian suspect in a flat in Al Rifa’a,” he said.
A police lieutenant testified that in October 2015 he was commissioned to fly to Madrid and accompany the fourth accused, who had been arrested in Spain.
According to court records a Serb resident was earlier jailed for 10 years for involvement in the case while a Serb visitor was cleared of aiding and abetting the resident.
A third suspect, who was extradited from abroad for his involvement in the heist, had his case dismissed for lack of corroborated evidence.
Wednesday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
