SHARJAH // The emirate’s attorney general has revealed a raft of procedural changes to cut red tape and make investigation work more efficient.

Rashid Al Omrani said changes were made after talks with all police departments, including CID and anti-narcotics, and the prosecutor general.

One of the moves made will see paperwork related to corpses of those who died of natural causes be dealt with by police stations, without the need for referral to public prosecution, which is currently the case for all dead bodies.

“We will limit the referral on corpses to cases of suicide, drowning and fires, which require permission from the prosecution to permit burial,” said Mr Al Omrani.

He also called on police to be more accurate about the location of fingerprints lifted at crime scenes.

“For example, if a car is the body of crime, then location of the fingerprints must be accurately specified whether from outside the car or inside it, from the door or window,” he said, adding that full reports must only then be submitted to the prosecutor.

The justice chief said non-Arab defendants must be interrogated with the presence of a translator and medical reports sent to prosecutors must be translated into Arabic accurately by specialised doctors.

“The reports must be complete and comprehensive before sending them to prosecution to avoid invalidity issues,” he said.

He said that only in the cases of rape and sexual harassment of children, samples will be taken from the bodies of those involved, and not in cases of adultery.

The collection of fines from ports and airports had been activated, he said, so someone sentenced to a fine can pay it while departing at an airport or at any of the country’s ports without the fear of being arrested and brought back to prosecutors.

The justice chief said that, when requested by police, they will receive training by prosecutors on the correct methods of writing reports.

In the past, those who have been accused of an offence and then a release order has been issued have faced trouble as their names remain in the police system as wanted.

Therefore Mr Al Omrani said that such individuals will, from now on, have their names deleted from the system as wanted.

In addition, the activation of electronic applications that allows a person to apply for the receipt of passports and documents without the need to come physically to the prosecution building had been completed, he said.

Finally, he encouraged all police to attach images to reports in murder cases, suicides and other crimes. “Every detail related to the location of the crime, even the direction of the wind, may affect the course of the case and the judgment,” said Mr Al Omrani.

salamir@thenational.ae