RTA employees cleared of leaking accident footage

Dubai: Two Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) employees have been acquitted of unlawfully leaking footage showing a traffic policeman being run over by a speeding car in the Airport Tunnel.

The Dubai Court of Appeal on Saturday cancelled the initial ruling, three-month suspended jail term, and cleared the 50 year-old Emirati employee, A.M., and his 24-year-old compatriot engineer, A.A., over uncorroborated evidence.

'Not the successor'

A.M.'s lawyer Saeed Al Ghailani, of Saeed Al Ghailani Advocates and Legal Consultants, said in his defence that the person who complained isn't the successor of the traffic policeman.

"He didn't have the right to complain against my client and the second suspect... he is just a distant cousin and didn't have any legal power to represent the victim's successors."

Public Prosecution records said A.M. and A.A. apologised to the Emirati policeman's family and said they didn't have intend to demean him.

The 50-year-old was charged with breaching secrets when he permitted the engineer to watch the accident footage from the RTA's control room and allowed him to record it on his cell-phone.

The 24-year-old was charged with aiding and abetting the employee.

The Public Prosecution also charged the 50-year-old with belittling the deceased.

Al Ghailani defended: "RTA's legal consultant testified in court that he was unaware whether leaking footage is considered secrets or not... hence there was no criminal intention in what happened. Besides, there is no written order preventing RTA employees from entering the control room outside duty hours."