Drunk tourist assaulted police officers, court told

DUBAI // A drunken tourist who consumed four litres of alcohol before assaulting two police officers was today sentenced to a month in prison.
LE, a 22-year-old British student, was arrested at dawn on September 23 at the Address Dubai Marina hotel, where he was involved with a scuffle with security guards who were trying to prevent him from re-entering the bar.
AM, a 21-year-old Emirati who headed the police patrol called to respond to the incident, told the Dubai Misdemeanour Court that when he arrived he saw the student kicking the security guards. When he and his colleagues arrested the student and put him in the patrol car he began insulting the officers and the UAE.
The officer said he stopped the car to get the student to calm down as he was screaming and hitting the car seats with his fists. "He then kicked me with his leg and assaulted me," said the officer.
Prosecutors said the student punched and kicked the officer in the abdomen, and that he hit another officer, MA, with the handcuffs that had been used to restrain him.
During police interrogation the student said he could not remember insulting the officers or the UAE.
"I don't know. What they say might be true but I can't remember because I was drunk," he said, adding that he could not remember exactly what alcohol he had consumed, because there had been so much of it.
"I apologise for what I did," he said.
The court sentenced him to a month in prison for assault and fined him Dh2,000 for insulting the officers and the UAE, and Dh1,000 for illegally consuming alcohol.
salamir@thenational.ae