Transit workers guilty of leaking police death video

DUBAI // Two Road Transport Authority (RTA) employees were convicted on Wednesday of leaking closed-circuit footage of a policeman's death in the Dubai International Airport tunnel last December. The Dubai Court of First Instance sentenced them to three months' jail, suspended for three years. The gruesome footage showing the policeman being rammed by a speeding car found its way to YouTube and upset his family.

It was filmed on RTA cameras on Dec 14 and made available to the public within days. The dead man's brother was shocked to see the ramming incident on a relative's mobile phone, accompanied by laughter in the background. According to court documents, sounds recorded on the video included crude and insensitive remarks by the defendants. AM, 50, and AA, 24, who are both Emiratis, worked at the Rashidiya traffic control room in Dubai on the day of the accident. They did not appear in court to hear the verdicts.

AM, the main operator on duty in the control room, was found guilty on a charge of disseminating secret information to the public and violating the trust of his employer by allowing AA to view the footage. He was acquitted on a separate charge of belittling and defaming the deceased. AA photographed the video footage and sent it to a friend, from whom it was circulated to the public. The dead policeman's brother, FM, 52, said in testimony to the public prosecution that days after his brother's death a relative showed him video footage of the accident he had received on his mobile phone. The brother said he heard laughter and mocking comments on the footage.

FM's relative, SD, 25, who filed a joint complaint with FM, told prosecutors a voice on the video made fun of the policeman just before he was hit by the car. "One voice said, 'Look man, he's walking like he is in a park not on a road and he's gesturing with his hands as well'," SD said, adding that this was followed by laughter. Both RTA staffers went to the house of the brother of the dead policeman and apologised to his family, SD said. He said AA admitted he recorded the video footage on his phone but denied disseminating the video to the public. "He said he only sent it to a friend and that it was that person, not him, who broadcast it," SD said.

The policeman was killed while investigating another accident in the tunnel. The driver who rammed him, identified only as MK, was convicted of accidental manslaughter and sentenced in February to six months in prison. hbathish@thenational.ae