Man jailed for hitting antinarcotics cop

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A drug addict begged antinarcotics officers to let him use a toilet. He tried to escape. He beat one of them who foiled his bid to escape.

The unemployed Arab man, 31, possessed with the intention of consuming 0.49 grammes of heroin he had wrapped in a paper roll. He had consumed morphine, meth, amphetamine and Pregabalin, prosecution records showed.

During court questioning on Feb.7 he confessed to drug abuse and assaulting a police officer dispatched to nab him inside his house. He sought leniency. The Dubai Criminal Court has jailed him for three years and fined him Dhs20, 000. It ordered the drugs be confiscated.

In Dubai Public Prosecution records, an Emirati policeman narrated that he was on duty in Bur Dubai on Oct.8 last year when the police operations room commissioned him to join a police team dispatched to apprehend the defendant.

This came after police a source alerted the police that the defendant had a stash of narcotic and psychoactive drugs that he was consuming from. “I and the police team went to his house and found him in his bedroom sleeping.

“We woke him up and told him we were policemen. We frisked him and seized a paper roll in the pocket of shorts he was wearing. It contained a suspicious powder. We were taking him away when he asked to use the toilet. We allowed him to.

“He pretended to be entering then suddenly set off running but we were quick to intercept him.

“He resisted and kicked my colleague causing him multiple minor injuries. We handcuffed him and took him to the Antinarcotics Department.”

From there the defendant was taken to the forensic lab to examine his urine sample, explained the 36-year-old policeman. A forensic lab report confirmed that he was under the influence of drugs at the time of the incident.