Summoned by the Police in the UAE: What the First 72 Hours Decide
A summons is usually the first sign that something has been filed. It may arrive as a phone call, a message, or an officer at the door of an office, and it rarely explains what the complaint says. What follows is governed by a strict sequence of hours and days, and most of what decides the case is settled inside that sequence — before anyone sees a courtroom. Knowing the timetable is not academic: it tells you what can still be influenced and what has already become part of the record.
The frame: liberty is the rule
Criminal procedure in the UAE is governed by Federal Decree-Law No. 38 of 2022, in force since 1 March 2023 and applying across all the Emirates. Its opening provisions state the principle the rest of the timetable serves: no person may be arrested, detained or deprived of liberty except in the cases and on the conditions provided by law, detention may take place only in places designated for it, and only for the period stated in the order of the competent authority. The same provisions render void any evidence obtained through torture or degrading treatment. Special regimes exist — terrorism, narcotics and certain financial offences run on their own, longer clocks — so the first question in any file is which regime applies to it.
Hours 0 to 48: the judicial police
A judicial police officer who detains a person must immediately inform them of the charge brought against them and explain their rights. This is the stage where most irreversible damage is done, because people answer questions to make the situation go away: they explain, they volunteer context, they sign what is put in front of them. Those statements become the record that the prosecution, and later the court, will read, and a position taken in the first hours is rarely corrected later. The detention at this stage cannot exceed forty-eight hours. If the matter is a summons rather than an arrest, the same discipline applies to the interview: what is said there is evidence.
Hours 48 to 72: the Public Prosecution
The Public Prosecution must question the accused within twenty-four hours of receiving them, and must then take one of two decisions: pretrial detention or release. Where a prosecutor does not question the detained person immediately, the person is held in a designated place for no more than twenty-four hours, after which the head of that place must bring them before the Prosecution. The arithmetic matters: without any judicial order at all, a person may lawfully be deprived of liberty for a maximum of seventy-two hours — forty-eight plus twenty-four. That ceiling is the single most useful fact to know on the first day, because it tells you when a decision must be taken rather than deferred.
After 72 hours: pretrial detention and who extends it
After questioning, the prosecutor may order pretrial detention where there is sufficient evidence and the act is a felony or a misdemeanour punishable by more than a fine. That order runs for seven days and the Prosecution may extend it by a further fourteen. Beyond that point the Prosecution cannot act alone: further extension requires a decision of a judge, who may order detention for periods of up to thirty days, renewable. The structure is deliberate — the longer liberty is withheld, the higher the authority required to withhold it. In practice this means the file is reviewed by fresh eyes at fixed intervals, and each review is an opportunity that has to be prepared for rather than awaited.
Release on guarantee or bail
Temporary release is dealt with in Articles 108 to 112 of the Code. It may be granted against a personal guarantee or a financial bail, and conditions such as residence at a stated address may be attached. Two limits are worth knowing in advance. Where the offence carries the death penalty or life imprisonment, release requires the personal consent of the Attorney General, which in practice is difficult to obtain. And bail is forfeited automatically where the released person fails to appear without a valid excuse — the amount passes to the State without a further court decision. Release is also not final: a person may be arrested again after release where the evidence against them strengthens. Since 2022 the Code also allows provisional electronic monitoring to be imposed instead of pretrial detention, which is worth raising where detention is being justified by flight risk alone.
What to do, and what not to
Attend rather than ignore: failure to appear converts a manageable situation into an enforceable one. Establish, before the interview, what the complaint actually alleges and which authority is handling it — a lawyer can obtain that where the person summoned often cannot. Say nothing about the substance until that is known, and do not sign a statement you have not read in a language you understand. Do not contact the complainant to settle the matter privately while a file is open, and do not move money, shares or property to protect them: a disposal made for that purpose is void by operation of law and can create a second case. If a travel ban is already in place, that fact usually reveals which stage the file has reached.
How we work on these matters
We act from the first contact with the authorities: establishing what has been filed and by whom, attending the interview, and preparing the position before the prosecution decision rather than after it. Where detention has been ordered, the work is built around the review points — the seven days, the fourteen, the judicial extension — and around the application for release on guarantee, monitoring or bail. Matters are handled in Russian, English and Arabic, and where the file also touches a frozen account, a travel ban or a parallel commercial dispute, those tracks are run together. This material states federal legislation as at September 2026 and is general information rather than advice on a particular matter; special regimes apply different periods, and the position in a specific file should be checked before any step is taken.
Where we handle matters like this
Criminal Defence
Defence in criminal proceedings in the UAE: fraud, breach of trust, embezzlement, cybercrimes. We enter the case at any stage — from the first interrogation to appeal.
Explore practice →Interpol & International Warrants
Challenging Interpol Red Notices, defence against extradition, removal of entry bans. We work directly with the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files (CCF).
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