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Ex-detainees cleared of arson
Ten men were cleared on Thursday of the charge of setting Al Qusais detention centre on fire after they were detained in connection with other cases.
The Court of First Instance, presided over by Judge Hamad Abdel Latif Abdel Jawad, found the ex-detainees, including nine Emiratis and a stateless (with no documents of country of origin), not guilty of arson and causing damage to public property charges.
Another Emirati detainee had been on trial on the same charges, but he committed suicide last year.
The defendants are all jobless, except for a student and a public employee. Their ages range from 19 to 40.
In his defense arguments, lawyer Saeed Al Guilani argued that the defendants had been sentenced to six months in jail by the Court of Misdemeanours on the charge of putting others’ lives at risk in connection with the same arson case.
Al Guilani requested the court to combine the two cases as the crimes in the cases are linked.
He argued that the defendants not be prosecuted twice for the same incident. The court met his request.
The Deira prosecution referred in March last year the 11 detainees to the Court of First Instance on the charge of setting Al Qusais detention centre on fire.
One of them committed suicide later. They were also charged with causing damage worth more than Dh201,000 to the public building.
The prosecution also referred them to the Court of Misdemeanours on the charges of putting the lives of other detainees at risk, assaulting on-duty public officers and threatening and insulting public officers.
According to prosecution records, the accused intentionally set their blankets and mattresses on fire in their cells at the detention centre where they were detained in December 2010. The fire spread to other cells of the centre which had detainees at the time.
They also allegedly assaulted on-duty police officers and inflicted injuries on two of them as per the prosecution investigation. And they allegedly threatened and verbally abused other officers.
The court had earlier released the defendants from jail.
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