DUBAI // The lawyer of four men accused of being part of a car theft gang claims they have been acquitted of the same charge three times previously.
"Your honour this is our fourth time in court over the same charge," the defence lawyer Saeed Al Ghailani told presiding Judge Maher Salama in the Criminal Court of First Instance yesterday. "The list of prosecution witnesses and persons involved are the same, I would like to request more time to review how this case has been put together now," he said.
Mr Al Ghailani is representing the Jordanian businessman AA, 36; the Pakistani manager MM, 24; the Syrian computer engineer MH, 34; and Lebanese man BB, 48.
Prosecutors claim that the men were part of a gang that would rent luxury and saloon cars before exporting them with the use of forged documents. They are alleged to have bribed a fifth person to stamp and sign export papers for the vehicles at the RTA.
An investigating officer said that in 2008 police had tracked a stolen Range Rover via a Global Positioning System and discovered it was heading for the Ghuweifat border crossing despite its engine being turned off.
"We informed the border control and the car was found on a trailer with other cars. When we investigated we discovered that some of the other cars were also being shipped with fraudulent papers," he said.
Police arrested MM, who owned the trailer company that transported the vehicles. The other men were said to be tied to the case through MM.
The court adjourned the case to February 29.
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