Forensics officer 'stole from corpses'

A criminal forensics officer who stole from corpses at the police morgue is sentenced to nine months in prison.

DUBAI // A criminal forensics officer who stole from corpses at the police morgue was today sentenced to nine months in prison.

The Dubai Criminal Court also fined EA, a 38-year-old from the Comoros Islands, Dh4,035 and ordered him to pay the same amount to the family of one of the deceased men.

The officer from Ajman worked at the Dubai Police Forensics Medicine Department where he was responsible for receiving corpses and delivering their belongings to their families.

Prosecutors said that on July 7 he stole Dh4,035 in cash from the wallet of a corpse referred to as LS, as well as two gold rings, a wristwatch and a silver bracelet. On the same day he stole a further Dh2,000 from the body of MA.

Someone working in the same section as the officer complained to his superviser that the belongings of one of the corpses was missing when the body was handed over to the Indian consulate.

The Dubai police captain SA testified that the officer denied the accusations when first interrogated but later confessed.

The officer denied theft charges when he appeared in court in October last year. He was ordered to repay the family of LS the Dh4,035 he stole. He will receive a separate sentence for the amount he stole from MA.