A man choked a Dubai policeman, insulted him and tore his uniform after refusing to get out of a taxi, the emirate’s criminal court heard on Monday.
On July 1, the policeman, 25, and a fellow officer were responding to a report from a taxi driver who was parked in Al Muraqqabat area and said his passenger refused to leave the cab or pay his fare.
When the officer questioned the British man, he allegedly began mocking them with his answers.
"I asked him where he lived, he said 'at the police station'. Then I asked him about his name, he responded it was 'hell' then said his name was 'goat'," the officer said.
The officers took the 42-year-old accused to a police station, where he began mocking them and calling them animals.
When asked to calm down, he refused and continued to insult the officers, who then chose to handcuff him.
"He started resisting and then tore my uniform and choked me with both hands before we were able to restrain him," said the officer.
In court on Monday, the accused denied charges of physical assault, issuing insults and damaging property.
The case was adjourned until September 19.
THE CLOWN OF GAZA
Director: Abdulrahman Sabbah
Starring: Alaa Meqdad
Rating: 4/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
