DUBAI // A student and his accomplices raided a farm and made off with more than Dh53,000 – in monkeys, a court has heard.
Prosecutors said that on February 25 last year, Emirati M A, 19, and unidentified cohorts went to the farm in Al Khawaneej.
They broke into a cage where eight monkeys were kept and made off with two baboons and four marmosets, the court was told.
Emirati O A, 34, an employee at the farm, said he received a call from a worker there who told him the animals had been stolen.
“I went there and saw that the cage was broken and the monkeys gone,” the employee said.
He checked surveillance cameras that showed the thieves at work, then handed the footage to police.
“I saw one climbing the farm’s wall from outside then opening the door to other men,” he said.
“Then they all headed to the monkeys’ cage and broke it open.”
Police found fingerprints and tissues near the cage that had traces of M A’s DNA, said Emirati policeman H A, 27.
“We arrested him. He denied it when we questioned him.”
The student laughed when asked by the presiding judge: “Did you steal monkeys? Nothing was left to steal so you steal monkeys.”
He replied: “No, I didn’t”.
The next hearing at Dubai Criminal Court will be on November 10.
salamir@thenational.ae