Company cash theft manager has jail sentence upheld by Dubai court

Ugandan said it was a laptop bag he was seen leaving the workplace with, not an envelope of cash, but the appeals court ruled against him.

DUBAI // A sales manager who denied leaving the country because he stole Dh51,000 and a car, instead saying he left to attend to his unwell mother, lost his appeal against a two-year sentence.

Ugandan S G was convicted in July with breaking into a safe at his workplace on August 18 last year and stealing the cash inside it then taking a company car.

South African company manager F D told prosecutors that the defendant requested his passport to open a bank account.

She said that a week later she put Dh51,000 into the safe, which had a security code, as S G looked on.

The next day she found the safe open and the money gone. S G was not at work.

Surveillance video showed the defendant leaving with what appeared to be an envelope.

On June 4 at Dubai Criminal Court, S G denied charges of theft and embezzlement and said that it was not an envelope he left with from the company but a laptop bag.

However, he was found guilty and ordered to serve two years in jail, after which he would be deported. He appealed the verdict last month but has now lost after the court upheld his sentence.