SIDEBAR 1
Dubai: When major crimes are visited upon Dubai’s shores, experts from Dubai Police General Department of Forensic Sciences and Criminology have always been among the first on the scene.
And with precision and attention to the tiniest details, their work has given criminal investigators new leads resulting in solid arrests of high-profile criminals involved.
On January 19, 2010, Dubai police were confronted with one of the most challenging cases ever placed before investigators -- the assassination of Palestinian politician Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh who was found dead in a Dubai hotel room.
With expert analysis and prompt follow-up, police identified up to 29 suspects, 12 of whom carried British passports, six Irish, four French, one German, and four Australian, and another two Palestinians who were arrested
Police said the post mortem results of Al Mabhouh body revealed that the assassins had injected the victim with drugs. Police said the killers used the drug succinylcholine to sedate al-Mabhouh before they suffocated him. Al-Mabhouh was found dead in his hotel room in Al Bustan Rotana Hotel.
A toxicological expert from the General Department of Forensic Sciences and Criminology at Dubai Police, said the drug succinylcholine, also known as Suxamethonium, is limited to short-term muscle relaxation in anesthesia and intensive care, usually for facilitation of endotracheal intubation. It has been in use since the pharmacological properties of succinylcholine were discovered around 1950 by K.H. Ginzel, H Klupp, and Gerhard Werner in Vienna, Austria.
In 2008, only five hours after the murder of Lebanese singer Suzan Tamim, Dubai police were able to identify the killer and soon pieced together the murder trail which revealed that it took 12 minutes for the murderer to enter the building, kill the victim and leave.
Police announced at the time that the murder was premeditated and the planning was done with cunning and highly professional.
The singer was murdered in her apartment in Jumeirah Beach Residence on July 28 in 2008. The police found her body later that evening, several hours after the incident was reported.
A post mortem done by the forensic department at Dubai police showed that the singer had her neck slaughtered with sharp knife.
The suspects were arrested later in Egypt, were convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
In yet another high-profile crime in April 2007, a night robbery was carried out during busy shopping hours.
The robbers came in two cars and smashed into the glass panes of the Graff jewellery store at Wafi shopping mall in Dubai. The armed men in black clothes and masks then took control of the store and stole jewellery worth Dh14.7 million. They drove off to the Za’abeel area and abandoned the stolen cars there.
After 13 months from the armed robbery of a jewellery shop at Dubai’s Wafi Mall, Dubai Police have succeeded in extraditing from Germany the prime suspect who allegedly led the gang of robbers.
While the global jewel heist syndicate known as the Pink Panther Gang has stolen more than Dh1.5 billion worth of gems in 90 robberies over more than 20 years - and Dubai police have brought Interpol one step closer to tracking them down.
The link to trapping the elusive thieves came in an investigation into Wafi Mall robbery.
The General Department of Forensic Sciences and Criminology at Dubai Police sent DNA samples from the crime scene to Interpol - and the link was made.
Dubai Police sent four DNA samples to Interpol which revealed a global organised operation called pink panther.
The gang, said to have ties to organised crime in Serbia, has since been linked to 90 jewellery robberies around the world and the theft of gems estimated to be worth more than Dh1.5 billion.
Precision police work
The forensics department at Dubai police using cutting-edge science to solve cases and prevent acts of crime.
The forensics pathologist tasks at Dubai police include gathering and examining evidence, examining the dead to show why and how a death happened, or examining injured persons and giving statements to the court about required treatment, or disability.
Forensics experts also examine sexual crimes and give evidence on the crime or even estimate ages due to the lack of proper documentation to prove the birth dates of a person, and also examination of those who are complaining against malpractices.
