DUBAI // Two robbers who posed as police officers and threatened a villa's occupants with a knife before being overpowered by their victims have been sentenced to two years in jail.
AA, 25, and MS, 22, both unemployed Emiratis, were found guilty at the Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance of attempted armed robbery and impersonating public officials.
The men forcibly entered a villa shared by Indian and Sri Lankan labourers one night in April. AA followed a 42-year-old cleaner into the house at 10.30pm and started rummaging through his room.
The cleaner asked what he wanted and AA said he was a policeman. When the cleaner asked for proof of identity AA brandished a knife and held it to the cleaner's chest.
When AA was distracted by MS outside the room with another villa occupant, the cleaner jumped on him, and his housemate helped him to subdue the attacker. MS was overpowered by four other men in the villa, and the occupants contacted police.
An officer who responded to the call found AA and MS tied up in different parts of the house, with the items they had tried to steal laid out around them.
MS was found sitting on the floor with jewellery scattered next to him, and AA was discovered near a lavatory with a knife and Dh900.
