Government employee faces five-year jail, deportation for embezzling over Dh600,000

A clerk did not know Arabic - but reluctantly signed some documents in that language at a government department, enabling a former employee of the department to embezzle more than Dh600,000 and escape.

The Dubai Court of First Instance sentenced the clerk, K. A. K., 51, an Indian, to five years, fined him Dh629,939 and ordered that he pay back the embezzled amount. He is to be deported after serving his term for aiding and abetting a crime.

Police are searching for the second suspect, M. S. M., a Palestinian former employee of the Estates Section at the Dubai Courts Department.

The General Prosecution had charged K. A. K., who worked for the prosecution, with aiding and abetting a crime and embezzling Dh629,939 from the legacies of three dead people after the Palestinian allegedly simplified his crime.

On May 8 last year, the Internal Financial Control Unit at the Dubai Public Prosecution discovered the embezzlement after some relatives of the three dead people came to check on their inheritance.

Police then arrested the accused because all the documents carried his name and signature, but he denied his charges. He claimed the Palestinian, who resigned in 1994, had informed him seven years before the incident that the Estates' section was distributing financial aid to the poor and needy.

He mentioned that the absconder was his neighbour before he resigned. He admitted that he received Dh1,000 from M. S. M.

The Indian told police that he used to sign for the Palestinian's documents that said he had collected cheques from the section. He added M. S. M. took his passport photocopy to submit it to the section so he could get the cheques.

The accused claimed that he never knew what kind of documents he had signed and was not aware of the value of the cheques. He also told the police that the same scenario was repeated four times in a year.