Robbers attacked on duty win court’s mercy

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

Three vengeful massage spa clients sparked a bloody massage spa brawl in which they too got hacked with swords. A jury lessened their punishment on Wednesday.

The unemployed Arab mastermind, 27, and both countrymen –a clerk, 29, and workmate, 27- went to the Vietnamese massage spa at an apartment in Al Baraha. The clerk entered for a massage service.

Thereafter, he walked out and realised his iPhone-5 and Dhs100 were stolen. He notified the workmate and the mastermind. They decided to revenge. They stormed, subdued a worker and ransacked the spa.

They snatched a Dhs80 Nokia mobile, a Dhs500 wristwatch and Dhs700 from a man, 26, working in the spa, after putting him in a chokehold using a stick, he told Al Muraqqabat Police Station. They also fled with a Lenovo, iPhone-5s, Nokia and Dhs8, 000 belonging to the man’s flatmates.

Prosecutors demanded the toughest punishment applicable. The Dubai Criminal Court jailed them for two years to be followed by deportation. They appealed seeking leniency. The Dubai Appeals Court commuted the jail term to six months. It upheld the deportation order.

The victim narrated that he was asleep after midnight when he heard someone knocking on the door. A masseuse opened and an Arab man entered then walked out. Shortly, the same man stormed with two others. Masseuses shouted for help. The Arab men smashed a window, jumped outside and scaled a fence. An Afghani witness saw a Vietnamese man crying for help. He showed a police patrol where the Arabs went.

An Emirati sergeant said he found the mastermind bleeding profusely from his shoulder, and the clerk bleeding from his head. Police rushed them to hospital. The clerk and workmate said the clerk was robbed in the spa.

They contended that they had simply returned to question the massage spa operators about who of them robbed the clerk’s belongings when a gang attacked them at the spa’s entrance and hacked them with swords.

The Afghan witness told investigators he saw three Asian women and a man jumping out of the window shouting that three armed Arab men had stormed the spa. The Arab workmate was brandishing a cricket bat.

Police personnel found a fear-stricken masseuse hiding inside an electricity cabin in the basement. They recovered the Lenovo, iPhone-5s and Nokia from the workmate. He confessed he stole them from the spa.