A fault in Supreme court procedure led to reviewing a judgment in theft crime

The Federal Supreme Court Abu Dhabi re-examined a case of accusing three persons of committing theft and threatening with weapons, after the court found that the accused were sentenced according to Article No. 384 of the Federal Penal Code, although they should be sentenced according to Article 385 of the same law.

The crime, happened when one of the defendants disguised themselves as a woman and was accompanied by the other two other defendants, who threatened the victim with using a weapon to steal his money.

Upon receiving a police report about the crime, the identity of the first accused was identified, arrested, and referred to a court of first instance, and he was given 15 years imprisonment and a fine of 50,000 Dh followed by deportation, and the court ruled in absentia against the second and third accused Life imprisonment and a fine of 50,000 Dh for each one of them followed by deportation and obligated them to pay the judicial fees.

After the verdict was issued, the fugitive defendants were arrested, and the three defendants appealed the verdict, as the Court of Appeal ruled that it was rejected and upheld the appealed ruling.

The defendants appealed the ruling before the Federal Supreme Court, and submitted a letter stated that the crime did not take place in a public road or a in a means of transportation, which requires the application of Article 385 of the same law, which is the article contained in the indictment, and that the Court of First Instance has modified the conditioning to something more severe without alerting the accused and without the elements of the crime in accordance with the amended description, and tried the accused in light of that And the appealed verdict supported him despite his violation of the law, which also blurs the contested judgment in violation of the law and corruption in the inference, which necessitates its revocation.

The court commented that this argument is correct, and said that the trial court does not adhere to the legal description that the Public Prosecution assigns to the act attributed to the accused and that it is its duty to examine the incident presented to it with all its adaptations and descriptions and to apply the provisions of the law to it properly, and the decision Also, the court’s authority to amend the description of the accusation is conditional on alerting the accused to amend the description of the charge in any way the court deems it fulfilled for this purpose.