Dubai Policeman ‘took bribes to arrest specific residency offenders’

Emirati on trial for taking bribes from a Bangladeshi, who told him to arrest three specific people, Dubai court hears.

DUBAI // A policeman made arrests for a man in return for phone credit cards, Dubai Criminal Court heard on Sunday.

Prosecutors said the Emirati officer’s duties included tracking illegal residents and offenders of residency rules. The officer, 27, was working at Global Village when he was given received Dh600 worth of phone credit from the co-accused on January 9 and before, they said.

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“He was approached by the Bangladeshi defendant and asked to arrest three people for absconding, then refer them to the Department of Naturalisation and Residency Dubai and make sure they get deported,” said prosecutors in court.

A police lieutenant said the Bangladeshi, 27, “confessed to everything willingly then helped us to arrest the officer red-handed after arranging to meet with him for a new bribery job”.

Prosecutors provided the court with a three-page transcription of a phone call between the two in which they were striking an agreement about another arrest. The policeman specifically asked for du recharge vouchers.

“During questioning, he told us that what he did was legal,” the lieutenant said. “He was arresting violators and absconders and his procedures were completely legal.”

In court on Sunday morning, the two denied the charges against them.

The next hearing has been scheduled for April 30.