DUBAI // A traffic policeman who stole 79 abandoned cars and sold them on for a profit was sentenced to 22 years in jail.
HS, 25, an Emirati, was jailed by the Dubai Criminal Court for his part in 11 cases of robbery and forgery. He was convicted of abusing his position, forging official documents, illegally obtaining master keys to the cars and stealing them.
Records said he would drive around looking for dusty and abandoned cars. He would then use his position at the Traffic Records Section at the Jebel Ali Police Station to change the ownership details on the police database and forge ownership documents so that he could get the cars repainted. He and three others would then sell the cars on.
All of the cars were stolen between 2010 and 2011.
According to prosecution records, HS handed himself in a year later because he felt remorse and couldn’t sleep at night.
“I felt guilty because I am supposed to be an officer of law who serves and protects but instead I was stealing cars, I couldn’t even sleep and nightmares haunted me and woke me up at many nights,” the policeman was quoted as saying.
Records stated HS came up with the idea after two of his friends visited him at the police station and noticed some abandoned cars. He told them the owners and left the country as they couldn’t pay their bank debts.
He gave the cars to his two friends who sold them in Sharjah with the help of a third man. All four split the profits.
Prosecutors said the policeman confessed to paying off Dh160,000 in credit card debt and repaying a Dh200,000 loan.
However, in court he denied all the charges.
HE, 22, holding a Comoros Islands passport, and SK, 25, an unemployed Saudi national, were charged with aiding and abetting the policeman and convicted in nine cases. They were sentenced to a year for each making a total of 9 years.
SM, a 39-year-old unemployed Omani who was charged with aiding and abetting and also possessing stolen items in four of the 11 cases, was acquitted.
salamir@thenational.ae
