Altercation over a Dhs2.5 soft drink sends 8 behind bars in Dubai

Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter

The Dubai Criminal Court sentenced an Asian and seven of his accomplices to three months in jail to be followed by deportation for destroying a restaurant and assaulting the restaurant owner and three of its waiters. The case dated back to October last year.

The defendant ordered a soft drink worth Dhs2.5 from a restaurant in Al Quoz Industrial Area and tried to leave without paying the price.

The restaurant owner prevented him from leaving and asked him to pay the price of the drink.

A verbal altercation followed during which the defendant left the restaurant and returned after a while with seven other people, who destroyed the contents of the restaurant and its external façade. The losses were estimated at Dhs23,000.

The restaurant owner stated in the interrogations that a man entered the restaurant and asked a waiter to bring him a soft drink and then tried to leave the place.

"The waiter tried to stop him and a verbal altercation followed between them that snowballed into a fistfight," he added.

The defendant left the place and vowed to come again, he said, adding that the defendant and the rest of defendants returned shortly after with a wooden stick and bricks.

"They broke the glass façade of the restaurant, destroyed the contents and tried to flee from the place before they were arrested by the police," he said.

A policeman stated in the interrogations that one of the defendants admitted that he took part in the assault out of his desire to take revenge on the restaurant owner who insulted one of his friends.

The Asian defendant admitted that he asked the rest of the defendants to help him assault the waiters after the restaurant owner had insulted him.