DUBAI // A baggage handler who was jailed for stealing playing cards and an earpiece for a mobile phone from a passenger’s luggage will now be deported after his jail term, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
At a previous hearing, Dubai Criminal Court did not order the Pakistani man to be deported after he was found guilty of opening passengers’ luggage and stealing the earpiece and five sets of playing cards on September 5 last year. He was jailed for three months.
Prosecutors appealed, seeking a harsher sentence. Dubai Court of Appeal upheld the jail sentence and ordered that the man also be deported.
He had been seen on CCTV opening bags at Dubai International Airport, going through them and then taking the earpiece from one.
When questioned, he confessed to police that he had opened luggage looking for valuables to steal but had not found anything so he took the earpiece.
“At his residence, we found five boxes of playing cards, which he said he stole from Emirates airline, as well as the earpiece he took from a passenger’s bag,” a police officer said.
The man pleaded guilty to theft in both courts.
salamir@thenational.ae