DUBAI // Three plane spotters walked free from a court on Monday despite being found guilty of taking photographs of aircraft at Fujairah airport.
British tourists Conrad Clitheroe, 54, and Gary Cooper, 45, and their expatriate friend Neil Munro were sentenced to two months’ imprisonment. Since they had already spent two months in jail awaiting trial, their sentences had been served. They were not ordered to be deported, reported a local daily.
“We received some good news today which is what we have been waiting for,” Mr Clitheroe’s wife Valerie, from Stockport in the north of England, said on Monday.
“We don’t have the full details yet. I think they may be out in the next 48 hours. I spoke to Conrad yesterday and he had no idea about what would happen.
“He just knew he was going to court today. It has obviously been very difficult but we have kept the faith.”
Mr Cooper and Mr Clitheroe, a clerk at a logistics company, arrived in Dubai on February 18 on tourist visas.
They checked into a hotel and on February 21 they travelled to Fujairah with Mr Munro, a former colleague who now works at Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai, to look for old and rare aircraft. They were detained that evening by police who found them near the airport making notes about the planes. Mr Clitheroe and Mr Cooper had been due to return home the following day. Instead the three men were transferred to Abu Dhabi for their case to be heard by the state security division of the Federal Supreme Court.
Nasser Hashem, the lawyer who represented Mr Clitheroe and Mr Cooper, said during the police investigation that he hoped his clients would face a less serious charge once the authorities realised they were not spying but plane spotting, their hobby since childhood.
