Dubai: Two policemen have been jailed after a court convicted them yesterday of tapping into the Dubai Police network system and cancelling Dh3,650 worth of traffic violations.

The Dubai Court of First Instance's Presiding Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad jailed each of the Emirati policemen, a 23-year-old first corporal and a 22-year-old first policeman, for three months.

When the defendants appeared in court earlier, they denied the charges.

Prosecutors had charged 23-year-old S.A. and 22-year-old S.M. with abusing their duty at Dubai Police's operation room and accessing the network [without their superiors' approval] to cancel their own traffic violations and those of others.

Passwords

According to the arraignment sheet, prosecutors said the accused used secret passwords of police staff at a special section authorised to cancel traffic fines to delete the information from the system.

A police lieutenant testified that an employee from the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) came to him and informed him that he collected around Dh1,000 in traffic fines.

"The employee alleged that I collected the money and I needed to pay it to him to finalise 2008's budget before depositing the money with RTA. I informed him that I was unaware of that collected money… we headed a police captain who informed the employee that I was not authorised to collect the traffic fine," claimed the lieutenant in his statement.

Primary investigations revealed that S.A. and S.M. were involved in tapping into the network and cancelling the fines, according to prosecution records.

A policeman at Dubai Police's inspection section testified before prosecutors: "Our investigation revealed that the accused used the lieutenant's password and tapped into the network system to cancel the traffic violations. They also obtained other officers' passwords to do the same job. Based on the Deputy Commander of Dubai Police Chief's instructions we arrested the suspects who confessed to their guilt."

Yesterday's judgment is still subject to appeal within 15 days.