Trio jailed three years for Dubai kidnapping and theft of electric cables

DUBAI // Three men convicted of kidnapping two security guards, abandoning them in a remote part of Sharjah before stealing Dh170,000 worth of electric cables will serve out their three-year jail sentences.

Dubai Criminal Court sentenced the Pakistanis aged between 23 and 32 to three years in jail each to be followed by deportation on June 26.

At the Dubai Court of Appeal they challenged the sentences and denied theft and kidnap charges.

Prosecutors said that on July 21 last year, they drove to a construction site in Al Barsha shortly before 5am and attacked the security guards, forced them into a car and abandoned them in a remote part of Sharjah.

The trio then returned to the site and stole electric cables worth Dh170,000, which they sold for Dh44,000.

One of the three told prosecutors that the other two planned the crime and his role was to drive. He said he was paid Dh3,000.

“I was contacted by my assistant, who told me that the guards at our site were kidnapped,” said Pakistani head of security, 47.

A 40-year-old security guard from India, said he and his colleague were attacked by three men who stepped out of a Nissan Sunny. “Some of them were in Emirati traditional clothes and covering their faces,” said the victim.

He said that the men tied him and his colleague up, blindfolded them and drove them to a desert area and left them.

Police investigations said the suspects were linked to the crime and later arrested. “They confessed willingly,” said a police offer.

The officer added that the men confessed to selling the cables to a scrap shop in Sharjah.