DUBAI // Two men who were sentenced to three years in prison for locking up and assaulting a security guard before stealing electrical cables worth Dh264,500 lost their appeal on Wednesday morning.
Last July, the Dubai Criminal Court convicted AA, 37, and 27-year-old AM, who are both unemployed Pakistanis, for assault, locking up a man against his will and robbery. They were each sentenced to three years.
The 50-year-old Indian security guard, NA, said that, at near midnight on June 18, while he was alone at the Emirates Electromechanics company in Jebel Ali, six masked men attacked him.
They restrained and gagged him before asking about the location of the electric cables. “When I said I didn’t know, one of the men slapped me and another waved a knife at my face,” said the guard.
They threatened to stab him if he did not take them to where the cables were stored. He was then dragged to the small praying room at the company where he was tied up and had his eyes covered.
“They left one to guard me and the rest left,” said the guard, who broke free at about 5am to find that the men had disappeared with the cables.
He reported the matter to police and the two defendants were arrested shortly after. A police officer testified that AA showed ferocious resistance but was eventually restrained and taken into custody.
“He told us that AM called him and asked him to join in the robbery,” said the policeman, MM, who added that AA confessed to the theft charge.
The officer said AA told him the gang headed to Sharjah after stealing the cables and sold them to a Bangladeshi man. “He told me his share in the whole thing was Dh100,” the policeman added.
Records did not state why the rest of the thieves were not arrested and charged.
The two men will be deported after completing their jail terms.
salamir@thenational.ae
