Student jailed for stealing monkeys from Dubai farm

Prosecutors said M A and a number of unidentified men broke open a cage where the six monkeys, worth more than Dh53,000, were kept.

DUBAI // A student has been sentenced to three months in jail for stealing two baboons and four marmoset monkeys from a farm.

The presiding judge at the Dubai Criminal Court asked 19-year-old Emirati, M A, “Did you steal monkeys? Nothing was left to steal so you steal monkeys?”

The defendant laughed and denied the charge. However, he was later convicted by the court.

On February 25 last year, prosecutors said that M A and a number of unidentified men broke open a cage where the six animals, worth more than Dh53,000, were kept.

Emirati O A, 34, who owns the farm in Al Khawaneej, testified that he received a call from a worker informing him of the theft.

“He told me that a robbery had happened in my farm so I went there and saw that the cage to the monkeys was broken and the monkeys gone,” said O A.

He checked the farm’s surveillance cameras and found a recording of the robbery.

“I saw one climbing the farm’s wall from outside then opening the door to other men then they all headed to the monkeys’ cage and broke it open,” said O A, who handed the footage to officers.

“We headed to the farm after receiving the report and found some tissues and finger prints near the cage, which had DNA traces from M A, so we arrested him. He denied it when we questioned him,” said policeman H A, 27, Emirati.

The animals were later returned to their owner.