Duo tie up guard, ransack Dubai company

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

Two labourers who tied up a watchman at knife-point, dragged him to a toilet and ransacked a company landed in in court on Monday.

The Asian defendant, 27, and his colleague, 22, confined the Nepalese watchman, 40, smashed open a metallic safe and drawers and decamped with Dhs39, 440 and $1, 000, as per Jebel Ali Police Station records.

Prosecutors charged both with restraining the watchman’s freedom, robbery and damaging property worth Dhs10, 700. They demanded tough punishments. The defendant claimed the case was cooked up and malicious.

The colleague denied and presented a memo while arguing that on the date and time of the incident he was on duty at his workplace. The Dubai Criminal Court’s jury adjourned the hearing till Sept.12 for their lawyers. In police and prosecution records, the defendant reportedly narrated that on that day he met his colleague and they devised a plan to ransack the company. They wore masks and gloves to conceal their identities.

The defendant carried with him a hammer and a screwdriver. The colleague carried a rope and a knife in addition to a bag. At around 1am, they scaled the fence and forced their way into the watchman’s room.

They brandished the knife in his face threatening to kill him in case he moved. They bound him to the chair and dragged him to the toilet after taking his mobile phones. They tried and failed to open the company’s door.

They went behind the company and climbed an emergency ladder to the window on the second floor. They broke the window’s lock and entered. They used the hammer and screwdriver to smash drawers in several offices.

The defendant claimed they collected Dhs35, 000 from the drawers. And that they tried and failed to open the safe.

The watchman complained before prosecutors that the defendant threatened to kill him. And that the colleague placed the knife on his neck asking him for the company’s keys and telling him to hand over his mobiles.

“They tied me to the chair and took me to the toilet. They poured water on the rope (to make it slippery) so I could not untie myself,” he said. Another watchman arrived in the morning, helped untie him and call the police. An Emirati warrant officer testified that the victim looked too scared as he narrated the ordeal. The defendant confessed upon arrest and revealed that his colleague also had keys used in opening safes.