DUBAI // A policeman took money and alcohol from bootleggers in return for ignoring their illegal activities, a court has heard.
And the officer confessed that he could receive payments for putting the illegal alcohol sellers’ competitors out of business, the Criminal Court was told.
On Monday, Omani K A, 42, denied charges of seeking and taking bribes.
“This is not true. None of it happened and I don’t know this man who says I asked him for a bribe,” he said.
The second defendant, Indian bootlegger J S, 32, confessed to paying the officer bribes totalling up to Dh5,000, and alcohol.
He said the bribes were to stop the officer arresting him for bootlegging and being an illegal resident.
In court, when asked to identify the policeman he had bribed, he pointed to K A.
Prosecutors said the bootlegger and another unidentified man had been paying bribes to the officer from 2012 until October last year.
Another officer, A G, 29, said he had received a tip-off about a corrupt policeman stationed at Al Quoz.
Investigations led them to J S, who said during interrogation that he had been threatened by a policeman with deportation if he did not pay a regular kickback.
He also promised to help the bootlegger avoid trouble if any other policeman arrested him.
The defendant had provided the bootlegger with a fake name, while the mobile number he was told to call in case of emergencies was registered under the name of an Indian national.
The officer was arrested after accepting a Dh1,000 bribe from the bootlegger in an undercover operation.
“When we arrested him, he quickly took out the money from his pocket and threw it away and said he did not have any money on him,” said A G.
Another policeman, M S, 24, said the defendant confessed that he had asked for a bribe from the bootlegger.
The next hearing was set for March 24.
salamir@thenational.ae