DUBAI // A couple charged with having consensual sex that resulted in a child were acquitted this morning, said the Dubai Court of Misdemeanors.
MA, a 29-year-old Egyptian, and ML, a 33-year-old Filipina, presented a marriage certificate registered in a civil records office in the Philippines.
The couple were arrested for having sex when they went to the police station after a fight between them. MA filed a complaint against ML for sending him disturbing text messages. They admitted to having sex, but said they were married in the Philippines in 2008.
MA told the court that he told prosecutors he was married, but "they gave me a deaf ear".
MA, a sales manager, said in prosecution records that when ML returned to the Philippines last year she was pregnant and gave birth to their child. She then returned to Dubai.
"When she informed me, I visited the consulate and registered the boy under my name," he said in records.
The couple met through Facebook.
ML said that she gave birth on September 13 last year and prepared all the necessary documents so she could register her son and when she returned to Dubai the couple registered the boy in the consulate.
She noted that there were a number of problems between them, mainly financial. MA used her ATM card to withdraw Dh5,000. She said that MA had also used her car when she was away and accumulated Dh4,800 in traffic fines on her vehicle.
