“Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”
As quoted by Fredrick Douglas, an American social reformer and abolitionist after escaping slavery.
To put it simply, a conspiracy under criminal law exists when two or more individuals agree or plan to commit an unlawful act and then take necessary actions to commit that act. However, the action taken need not constitute a crime but must prove that those involved in the conspiracy were aware of the plan and had intentions to commit the crime. It is possible that an individual might be charged with conspiracy regardless of whether or not there was a crime committed.
A simple criminal conspiracy scenario can be as follows: Parties A, B, C, and D enter into an agreement to commit a robbery. A will enter into a house using the key that B has provided, while C will be outside the premise with a getaway vehicle. Once the act is completed, and the money is stolen, all the parties agree that D will keep the money until further notice.
The plan seems pretty straightforward, right? All the parties have a singular role to play in the act, and it is understood that A will commit the crime solely while the other parties are merely accessories to the crime.
However, all four parties involved may be convicted of a conspiracy regardless of whether they committed the crime or not.
There are three (3) instances where a court in any jurisdiction may find a party guilty of conspiracy:
TheUAE Federal Law Number 3 of 1987 regarding the Penal Code has provided provisions for criminal conspiracies and co-conspirators under Chapter 3. Article 44 has laid out the definition for accomplices of a crime and mentions that a person who has committed the crime by himself or acts as a direct accomplice will be deemed as a perpetrator of the crime. There are three (3) instances where a person will be considered a perpetrator of a crime:
Furthermore, a person will be considered an accomplice by causation under Article 45 if:
Suppose a person is found at the scene of the crime. In that case, it is pertinent to determine his intentions as Article 46 has stipulated that a person discovered at the scene of the crime that possesses the intentions to commit the crime will be considered as a direct accomplice. However, in criminal law, the intention is everything as aforementioned. If a person found lacks criminal intent, he shall not be subject to the penalty, although other accomplices will not benefit accordingly, as mentioned in Article 48. The law will impose a penalty on the accomplice to the crime, either direct or by causation, that is in line with his criminal intention and knowledge of the crime as stated in Article 52. To know more about the criminal laws and legal procedures get in touch with the criminal lawyers in UAE.