A closeup shot shows the facade of the Dubai Courts building during a hearing on April 04, 2010 in the case of a British couple sentenced to a month in jail after being convicted of kissing in public in a restaurant in the Muslim Gulf emirate. The couple's lawyer said the appeals court upheld the one-month prison sentence against the two, named by the British press as Ayman Najafi, 24, a British expat, and tourist Charlotte Lewis, 25. The couple were arrested in November 2009, after they were accused of consuming alcohol and kissing in a restaurant in the trendy Jumeirah Beach Residence neighbourhood.     AFP PHOTO/STR / AFP PHOTO
A Dubai court has granted a retrial to an Emirati man who was convicted of causing his friend’s death in a Shisha fire. AFP

Dubai court acquits engineer charged with leaking trade secrets


An engineer charged with leaking trade secrets was cleared by Dubai Court of Appeal on Tuesday.

Court documents showed that the Indian, 34, had lodged a labour complaint against his company on January 6, 2020, for non-payment of his end-of-term benefits.

Two weeks later, the engineering company accused him of leaking confidential project designs in an attempt to force him to withdraw his complaint.

“This is a malicious case filed by the company he worked for because he lodged a labour complaint against it seeking his benefits of more than Dh30,000,” Emirati lawyer Mohammed Al Redha told the court.

Court documents showed the designs were emailed to him by another employee in an attempt to frame him.

“This employee was hired to replace my client and was asked to email the designs to him. Later, the company sacked my client and flew him back to his home country,” Mr Al Redha said.

“It’s obvious this was fabricated to implicate him. He possessed these designs before he quit and made no attempts to get hold of them after he resigned.”