Worker jailed for 3 months in theft case

Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter

The Dubai Criminal Court sentenced an Asian cleaner to three months in jail to be followed by deportation and fined him Dhs30,000 on charging of stealing Dhs30,000 from a company he was working and hiding the same in a yard near his house. The defendant was arrested after the company’s surveillance cameras caught him in the act.

The case dated back to last November when an investor filed a complaint that Dhs30,000 had been stolen from a safe in his company. He testified that he received a phone call from the company’s accountant that the rear door of the company was not tightly closed, the desk drawer seemed as if broken with a sharp instrument and the money that was in the company’s safe disappeared.

A policeman testified that as soon as he arrived in the site subject of the complaint, he checked the surveillance cameras, which showed a man opening the desk drawer and taking the money that was in it before leaving from the rear door. After gathering inferences and lifting the fingerprints, the policeman identified the perpetrator, who was found to be the cleaner working for the company.

On interrogation, the defendant confessed to the charge levelled against him. He said he went to the company he was working for in the evening that day and entered it from the rear door. He hid in a corner and waited until all the employees left before opening the safe and stealing all the money that was in it. He then left the company very quickly using the rear door and hid the money in a sandy area in the vicinity of the company before he returned home.

When he was arrested the following day, the defendant led the police to the place where he had hidden the stolen money.

Separately, two Africans and two Asians killed a guard at a site under construction after gagging and tying him down while he was sleeping to steal electrical cables. The Criminal Court sentenced the two Africans to seven years in jail and sentenced the Asian ones to three years in jail. The Court of Appeal, however, increased the sentence to 10 years against the two Africans and to five years against the two Asians.