Thanks for exposing this fraud. Here's a follow-up story:29 Mar 2010
A British expatriate in Dubai is facing jail and deportation after being accused of making a single-finger gesture in an argument.
Simon Andrews, 56, has had his passport confiscated for almost eight months while waiting for his case to be heard.
He told Dubai Court of Misdemeanours he denies "flipping the finger" at Mahmoud Rasheed, an Iraqi aviation student, during an argument.
He will appear in court on Sunday for a full hearing of the case.
It is the latest in a string of prosecutions of expatriates and visitors in Dubai for breaching the emirate's public decency laws.
Making insulting gestures is regarded as unacceptable, and carries with it the possibility of a jail sentence of up to six months and deportation.
An Australian nurse working in a hospital in Dubai was last year jailed for a month and deported after serving 24 days after admitting raising his middle finger to a driver who he said was driving erratically while talking on his mobile phone.
The driver turned out to be an off-duty army officer who followed him home and reported him to police.
Mr Andrews has said Mr Rasheed, who has not yet appeared in court to give evidence, is mistaken and no finger was raised.
At a court hearing on Sunday, he asked for the passport put up as bail surety for him by a friend to be returned as the friend had to go abroad for work.
He was told to provide another passport in its place. His own passport has also been confiscated, preventing him leaving Dubai before the case is heard.
"He appeared very confident," an observer at the court said. "He said it was "my word against his word" and though the other main claimed he flashed his middle finger, it never happened.
"He also pointed out he hadn't turned up in court."
Also appearing in court on Sunday will be Ayman Najafi and Charlotte Adams, two Britons who are appealing against a one-month jail sentence for kissing in public at a restaurant, another breach of the public decency code.
They also pleaded not guilty, but were convicted even though the main witness, an Emirati woman who called the police, failed to attend the hearing.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/dubai/7535697/Dubai-Briton-faces-jail-over-middle-finger-salute.html
Premier Adult Entertainment Community
Printer Friendly view
, 08-Sep-10, 01:47 PM, (1)
Gretchen
