A tourist accused of drunkenly touching a man at a bar in Dubai will serve three months in jail after being convicted by a court on Sunday.
Jamie Harron, 27, from Scotland, was arrested after a German expat called police alleging the man had patted his behind, then flashed his middle finger, the court heard.
The incident took placed at a bar in the Barsha Heights district on July 15.
The victim, who is of Jordanian descent, told Dubai Criminal Court that when he questioned Harron about touching his behind, the accused flashed his middle finger.
“I didn't say anything nor did I scream or insult him. I just called police, who arrested him,” said the 49-year-old manager, who had not met the accused before.
Harron denied a charge of sexual assault earlier this month.
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He had already denied charges of consuming alcohol without a licence and committing a publicly indecent act by flagging his middle finger, at Dubai Court of Misdemeanours.
A 27-year-old mechanical engineer, who is a witness friend of Harron, told prosecutors that the Scotsman did not mean to offend the man, but confirmed that he did touch him.
“He was passing near the other man and accidentally touched his arm then immediately apologised and he patted him on his behind in a gesture that meant he was sorry,” said the witness.
The case has attracted widespread international media coverage and reports say Harron was on a two-day stopover in Dubai on his way back to Afghanistan, where he worked as an electrician.
Harron was publicly identified by his lawyers and spoke out to claim that he was walking through a crowded bar and accidentally touched the man as he tried to avoid spilling a drink.
The case was the latest in a series of incidents involving British nationals on holiday.
Last month, another Briton was charged over raising his middle finger in a road rage incident.
Jamil Ahmed Mukadam, a 23-year-old IT worker from Leicester, allegedly stuck his middle finger up at a driver while making his way to Dubai airport in a rental car in February.
He is awaiting a case against him being brought to court.
Last week British Ambassador Philip Parham issued advice to visitors in light of the cases.
"Our travel advice for the UAE explains that local laws and customs are very different to those in the UK and that there may be serious penalties for doing something which may not be illegal in the UK," he said last week.
"But we understand that, regardless of how prepared we all are, British people can still find themselves in difficult or distressing situations, and we are ready to help on those occasions."
Harron was not in court for his verdict and had no lawyer representing him there either. But he can appeal the conviction and sentence within two weeks.
Detained in Dubai, a British-based legal group, said his "lawyers say they will appeal" on Twitter on Sunday.
He will be deported after serving his sentence.
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
Details
Through Her Lens: The stories behind the photography of Eva Sereny
Forewords by Jacqueline Bisset and Charlotte Rampling, ACC Art Books
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
Specs
Engine: 51.5kW electric motor
Range: 400km
Power: 134bhp
Torque: 175Nm
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Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Various Artists
Habibi Funk: An Eclectic Selection Of Music From The Arab World (Habibi Funk)
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Frankenstein in Baghdad
Ahmed Saadawi
Penguin Press
Test
Director: S Sashikanth
Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan
Star rating: 2/5
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
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Profile
Company: Justmop.com
Date started: December 2015
Founders: Kerem Kuyucu and Cagatay Ozcan
Sector: Technology and home services
Based: Jumeirah Lake Towers, Dubai
Size: 55 employees and 100,000 cleaning requests a month
Funding: The company’s investors include Collective Spark, Faith Capital Holding, Oak Capital, VentureFriends, and 500 Startups.
David Haye record
Total fights: 32
Wins: 28
Wins by KO: 26
Losses: 4
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Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol
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How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
