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Mozambican businessman cleared of hiring illegal dancer in Dubai
7:42 CAT | 24 Oct 2016
A tourism company business associate accused of employing an illegal dancer walked free from the Appeals Court after his lawyer cited dubious testimonies in the accusation records.
The Mozambican man SK, 61, first appeared at the Misdemeanours Court over allegations that he illicitly employed the Kazakh woman FF, 38, as a dancer inside one of his desert tents a period before May 1.
An Emirati immigration warrant officer claimed that FF arrived at his counter and handed him someone else’s passport in a bid to travel back to her home country.
He claimed she told him she worked for SK’s travel and tourism company “since for years.” He allegedly summoned SK and he confessed to have hired her as a dancer at a Dhs200 daily payment.
During prosecution interrogations, FF said she entered the country in 1999 through illegal means in order to search for a job. She worked in different fields and at different workplaces including inside SK’s tents.
“When concerned authorities in my home country delayed to process my passport, my sister (J) residing in the UAE, told me to travel on her passport to Dubai. I entered through the Dubai International Airport.
“I took J’s passport to her. I don’t know what she did with it and I have never heard of her since 17 years,” she explained to interrogators at the residency prosecution.
She further claimed she worked at SK’s tents “for four years” and that SK would pay her Dhs200 daily. On being asked about when was the last time she worked there, she said “four years ago.”
During prosecution interrogations, SK refuted the allegations and said he had no direct connection with her. “I had seen her four years ago. She used to show up with an ex-driver of my company.
“I never employed her. The driver was her boyfriend. She would come with him and consume alcoholic drinks after which she would join dancing with other females who thronged my company’s desert tents.”
The Misdemeanours Court convicted SK and ordered him to pay a Dhs50,000 fine. He appealed the ruling and his lawyer Advocate Rashid Tahlak presented a defence memo to the Appeals Court.
Tahlak argued that all statements and testimonies rendered by the warrant officer and FF during all stages of interrogations were false. SK’s testimony was taken without the presence of an authorised translator.
The warrant officer claimed SK confessed before him that he employed FF since 2008. “FF and SK were falsely interrogated in English. It was not their language and it wasn’t the warrant officer’s language either.
“When SK was later questioned in Urdu (his mother tongue), he denied. Secondly, the case is unsubstantiated because FF was not caught red-handed dancing inside any of the tents.
“The case details based of the testimonies of the officer and FF are full of illogical contradictions. It is not clear whether she worked there since four years or for four years or four years ago!,” stressed the lawyer.
“Suppose she worked there for four years, where had she been working until she was arrested? No one even asked her in which of SK’s tents she worked, and which desert and what type of dance.
“She was not charged with having worked illegally at different places as per her testimony. As if someone wanted to frame SK! Why were investigators so lenient with her in that they didn’t even charge her with identity fraud as she entered the country using a forged passport?”
Prosecutors asked the Appeals Court to dismiss the lawyer’s argument and uphold SK’s punishment. However, it pronounced him innocent.
Source: The Gulf Today
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