Man loses appeal over three-year sentence for Dh2m cable theft

Pakistani must serve the full term in prison in Dubai after appeal court ruling.

DUBAI// A man will serve three years in jail for stealing Dh2 million-worth of electric cables from a Nakheel construction site after losing his appeal bid.

Pakistani M E, 27, denied an armed robbery charge at both criminal and appeals courts.

On July 25, he and a group of unidentified men raided the site in Warsan, attacked a Pakistani security guard, tied him up and then robbed the place.

“I have been with the company for three months only and was assigned to the location just five days before the incident,” said the 28-year-old security guard, Z K.

He was on one of the many security patrols he makes between 8pm and 8am every day when, “at nearly 1.30am, a car pulled over and a man stepped forward identifying himself as a CID officer then he asked me for my ID”.

The guard was then attacked by five men who tore his uniform and used his under-shirt to restrain him, before covering his head with a coat and locking him in the security room without any phone.

“They held knives and told me they would cut my head off if I moved or said a word,” testified Z K.

After about an hour and a half, the noise stopped and the guard managed to untie himself and found out that electric cables worth Dh1.979m were stolen from the warehouse.

He used the phone of a security guard in a nearby construction site to call police, who found out that the defendant had a history of robberies.

Police said he confessed to stealing the cables but he did not identify his accomplices.

“He told us they sold some of the cables for Dh16,000, from which he was paid Dh1,500,” said policeman A S, 39.