(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The Court of Appeals on Wednesday overturned an acquittal verdict given to a jewellery shop manager and sentenced him instead to one year in prison and deportation. He was convicted of stealing 15.3kg gold, worth Dh1.5 million, while he was assigned with the responsibility of guarding it.
In an appellate court's ruling read by presiding Judge Saeed bin Sarm, the Sudanese manager, identified as R.F., 57, was also fined Dh1.5 million and ordered to return the gold he had stolen.
He will also have to pay Dh21,000 in temporary compensation to the company that owned the gold. R.F. was cleared by the Court of First Instance in September last year of embezzlement and breach of trust charges for lack of evidence. However, the public prosecution appealed the verdict.
According to prosecution records, the stolen jewellery was placed under seizure in a commercial lawsuit dating back to 2009 between two jewellery companies.
An Emirati lawyer, representing the company that had rights over the stolen jewellery, said the seizure order was issued following a bounced cheque given by another trading company to their client. "The seizure, which was ordered by the Urgent Matters Judge, covered jewellery items worth Dh 1.5 million in the shop in Gold Souq at Naif market, equivalent to the amount of the cheque," the lawyer said.
The lawyer indicated the theft must have happened at the time when the guard was being replaced with R.F. "The other jewellery company was ordered by a judicial order to pay its dues plus the legal interest rate to our client. An expert was appointed to estimate the actual price of the seized jewels before they were to be sold in auction." But the expert could not carry out his assigned job as he failed to locate the seized jewels.
The execution judge then issued a subpoena against R.F. as he was the guard at the time when the theft took place. An Emirati execution officer said a guard becomes automatically responsible for the items he is assigned to watch under a court's seizure order.
"That is the procedure. The replacement of any guard comes by an execution judge's order. The terms of replacement sometimes include a verification of the seized jewellery to see whether they match with the inventory in our files or not. The new guard always deposits his passport at the execution department when he is entrusted to watch the seized jewellery."
R.F. may appeal his conviction within 30 days at the Court of Cassation.
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