Man will spend one year in jail.

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A thief ran past a woman and pulled her handbag in an incident that left her with a broken left finger. He will spend one year in jail.

The convict – an African man, 31, who was in the country on a visit visa – forcibly grabbed a handbag from an Indian woman who had wound its chain around her fingers as she walked down a street with her children.

It contained the passports of her son and her daughter, Dhs1,300 cash, papers, documents, a credit card and house keys plus visa application forms of the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs. 

He broke her ring finger as a result of the force he employed in snatching the bag, prosecutors told the Dubai Criminal Court. The court’s jury jailed him for one year plus deportation. He insisted he was innocent.

He appealed seeking to challenge the decision. Prosecutors presented a document showing he had a chain of crimes.

The Dubai Appeals Court found him guilty and upheld the Criminal Court’s decision to punish him.

During police investigations she narrated that she and her children walked out of a shopping centre in Hor Al Anz East area at around 10pm on May 4. They walked over a pedestrian bridge to the opposite side of the street.

They walked towards Al Wuheida not knowing the defendant was monitoring and stalking them. He charged at her from behind and grabbed the bag she was carrying in her left hand. “I had wound its chain around my fingers.

“He pulled the bag, breaking my finger,” she complained.

“She and her children tried to run after him but he was too fast. She complained at Al Muraqqabat Police Station. A medical examination report confirmed the fracture.

Criminal pursuit teams arrested him two days later. The woman recognised him during an identity parade. Police attached to the case file, a copy of records detailing earlier street robberies the defendant conducted.