Dubai Marina chef gets jail sentence, fined for serving out-of-date chocolate mousse

Indian's out-of-date mousse landed five women in hospital with food poisoning.

DUBAI // A chef was sentenced to three months in jail and fined Dh10,000 for causing food poisoning in five people who ate his out-of-date chocolate mousse.

A company had booked a restaurant in Dubai Marina for an employee dinner party on October 19 two years ago.

Prosecutors said the restaurant had signed an agreement with a hotel in which the hotel’s cooking staff would prepare all the meals for the occasion, and Indian MM was the chef at the hotel.

Five women — two Filipinos, one Syrian, an Egyptian and an Indian — suffered from severe stomach pain, diarrhoea and vomiting after eating the mousse.

After the dinner, each of the women admitted themselves to a different hospital and found out that they were suffering from food poisoning.

On their return to work they discovered about each other’s situation and suspected that it must have been the meal they all had together that caused the poisoning. They reported the matter to police.

A report issued by Dubai Municipality confirmed that the mousse was expired and contained salmonella.

The chef denied that he was responsible during police and prosecution investigations, saying his mousse was not out-of-date.

He did not show up at Dubai Court of Misdemeanours to enter a plea against the charge of posing risk to others’ lives.

The restaurant’s manager, SL, 59, from Mozambique, and the hotel’s manager, SJ, 49, from India, both denied a similar charge in court and were acquitted, while MM was convicted. It was unclear why the case took two years to come to court.