“theft at night”

I feel sorry for the New Yorker imprisoned in Dubai, since he alleges having been tortured into a confession.

However, I love one of the categories under which he is being charged:

“The UAE has charged Foster with theft of government property, possession of police paraphernalia and theft at night.”

The crime of theft at night? It’s fascinating that that is a (presumably) aggravating factor in weighing the crime.

My two other favorite categories of crimes that I’ve seen in the past:

*Mexico charged the brother of former President Salinas with “inexplicable enrichment.” I love that that’s a crime in Mexico! It ought to be a crime everywhere!

*During the 1993 floods in the U.S. Midwest, some twit in Missouri sabotaged a levee simply in order to strand his wife at work across the Mississipppi River so that he could enjoy his extramarital affair for a few nights longer without his wife returning. (He was arrested after stupidly going on TV and claiming falsely that he heroically attempted to prevent the breach of the levee, thereby ensuring that the police would talk to him before anyone else.) There was millions of dollars worth of damage to farmland, and thousands of people stranded on the wrong side of the river, thanks to this idiot.

In any case, the crime with which he was charged was “Knowingly Causing a Catastrophe,” and if memory serves it carried a potential life prison sentence. But my father joked at the time that maybe he could plea-bargain it down to “Knowingly Causing an Inconvenience.” [ADDENDUM: Turns out that many people believe this man was a miscarriage of justice.]