Dubai: A flight steward landed in court after Dubai Police’s cybercrime officers busted him illegally accessing banned websites that contain child pornographic material during a random online surveillance.
Cybercrime policemen were said to be carrying out random online monitoring when they busted the Polish steward after he accessed the banned children pornographic websites in May.
Law enforcement officers further discovered that the suspect had saved files of child pornographic content and had also shared some of those files through special programs on the internet.
Police arrested the suspect and confiscated the devices that he had used to access the indecent websites after they identified him through the IP address through etisalat.
Prosecutors accused the suspect of breaching the cybercrime law and intentionally possessing children’s pornographic materials via the internet.
The defendant pleaded not guilty and dismissed any criminal intention when he defended himself before the Dubai Misdemeanours Court.
His lawyer argued before the presiding judge that law enforcement procedures were carried out improperly and unlawfully against his client.
The online surveillance of the cybercrime policemen revealed that the suspect had accessed the child pornographic websites between May 28 and June 1, according to records.
Police records said the defendant had circulated a number of files [of child pornographic content] on a special program that enables its users to share files online.
The suspect was arrested at Dubai International Airport before he travelled to Thailand.
When questioned by the police, the suspect was cited admitting that he used three keywords [13 years, teen sex and porn] while surfing the internet.
He was also quoted confessing that he had saved files of indecent materials for his personal pleasure.
The suspect was also quoted admitting to prosecutors that he downloaded and saved the files without sharing them with anyone.
The defendant’s lawyer argued before the court that his client is a non-Muslim and a non-Emirati and hails from a country where the act he had committed is not incriminated by law.
The suspect respects the UAE laws but the evidence produced against him was not substantiated enough to decisively confirm that his actions had been committed inside the UAE, contended the lawyer.
“We ask the court to dismiss the case against the suspect and acquit him because he was arrested in an illegal manner. Law enforcement officers did not obtain a proper search and arrest warrant from Dubai prosecutors to detain my client. His confession before police and prosecutors was obtained under coercion. The suspect did not have any criminal intention,” argued the lawyer.
A ruling will be heard later this month.
