Dubai: A waiter lost his appeal and will be jailed three months for accepting recharge cards as bribes, in return for giving extra meals to prisoners at Dubai Central Jail.

In May 2018, Dubai Police were informed that the Indian accused, 23, who worked for a catering company that delivers meals to jails, had been taking phone recharge cards from the prisoners, in exchange for delivering extra meals.

Dubai Police commissioned an informant inside the Central Jail, to communicate with the waiter and have him deliver an additional meal in return for phone credit.

Police arrested the man during the sting operation, in which he was caught red-handed taking Dh110 in recharge credit, after he had delivered an extra meal to the informant.

In October, the Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the defendant of abusing his job and taking Dh110 in phone recharge credit as a bribe.

The accused appealed his primary punishment before the Dubai Appeal Court, seeking to acquit himself.

Presiding judge Eisa Al Sharif dismissed the defendant’s appeal and confirmed his three-month jail sentence. He also upheld the defendant’s fine of Dh5,000.

The accused, who pleaded not guilty, will be deported following his jail term, according to the appellate ruling that remains subject to appeal before the Cassation Court.

When he showed up in court, the defendant contended that he did not take phone credit in bribes. “A prisoner gave me the phone recharge but not as a bribe … I didn’t give him anything in return,” he told the appellate court.

A police corporal testified that an informant alerted them that the defendant had been taking phone recharge from prisoners, in exchange for extra food.

“We commissioned the informant to contact the waiter and ask for an extra meal to be delivered in his cell. Once the 23-year-old accepted the phone recharge, the police apprehended him. We found in his pocket a paper that contained the serial numbers of the phone recharges. During questioning, the accused said he refused a prisoner’s offer to give him an extra meal. He claimed that when he refused to take the paper with the recharge code, the prisoner left the paper on the table and walked away, after which he took it and put it in his pocket. The prisoner then reported him, he claimed,” said the corporal.