Café clients get jail for robbing passerby

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

Two unemployed men rushed out of a café to rob a female pedestrian of her smartphone. They stabbed a man for trying to stop them.

The Asian defendant, 23, and his cohort, 30, must see out their one-year-jail term after which they will be deported. The Dubai Appeals Court has upheld a penalty issued by the Dubai Criminal Court.

They were sitting inside a café at a street in Al Muraqqabat at round 11:30pm on Sept.13 when they spotted a Filipina walking with an iPhone in her hand. The defendant proposed they snatch the iPhone.

The cohort snatched it and they fled in different directions. A Palestinian visitor intercepted the cohort. The latter was quick to stab his arm with a sharp tool. They confessed before police and prosecutors.

The Criminal Court convicted them of robbing the Dhs3, 400 iPhone and assaulting the visitor. It jailed them for one year to be followed by deportation. They vainly appealed while pleading innocent.

In prosecution records, the victim, 34, said she was walking on the pavement of Salah Din Street on her way home with the iPhone-6 Plus in her hand. Two men came walking towards her from the opposite direction.

“One of them grabbed my phone and ran across the street. The other ran in a different direction and disappeared behind buildings. The visitor sized the one with the phone but the latter stabbed him and fled.”

The visitor said, “I ran after him within parked vehicles and seized him from behind. He stabbed my left arm with a sharp tool. I let go of him for fear he would stab me again. He continued running and disappeared.”

An Emirati sergeant said a source directed police to the defendant’s hideout in Al Gharhoud. He confessed and said his cohort sent the phone to their homeland.

The cohort claimed he threw it in a trash container after failing to open it because it had a password.