ABU DHABI // The Supreme Court yesterday confirmed the death penalty for a man who raped a woman and left her in the desert.
The ruling was contained in court documents, which did not disclose any further details about the rapist or his victim.
On January 5 last year, the victim was waiting for a car to take her from the Omani border to Al Gheel area in Sharjah, when the man offered her a ride in his pickup truck.
On the way, he took an unexpected turn towards a mountainous area. When she asked him why, he said he wanted to carry some rocks.
After that, the man went back to the main road, pulled over and asked her to have sex with him.
"She refused and begged him to leave her and not assault her," the documents said.
"But he attacked her as a fierce beast, held her tight and threatened to kill her if she did not have sex with him."
He raped her "despite her weak resistance, then kicked her in her back, left her in a deserted area and went on his way".
She waited on the road until a male passer-by found her and took her to the police station. The woman gave the police details of the rapist's car that led them to him.
He confessed to rape, a confession supported by forensic tests.
Fujairah Criminal Court of First Instance found him guilty of kidnap and rape, and sentenced him on May 9 last year. He and prosecutors both appealed but the Appeals Court upheld the verdict.
Both parties appealed again to the Supreme Court, with the man arguing that the woman had consented to have sex with him.
But the justices ruled that forensic tests and his confessions to prosecutors were sufficient to sustain the conviction. They upheld the sentence, making the decision final.
The decision will be referred to Sheikh Khalifa, the President of the UAE, as his signature is required before an execution.
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Will the pound fall to parity with the dollar?
The idea of pound parity now seems less far-fetched as the risk grows that Britain may split away from the European Union without a deal.
Rupert Harrison, a fund manager at BlackRock, sees the risk of it falling to trade level with the dollar on a no-deal Brexit. The view echoes Morgan Stanley’s recent forecast that the currency can plunge toward $1 (Dh3.67) on such an outcome. That isn’t the majority view yet – a Bloomberg survey this month estimated the pound will slide to $1.10 should the UK exit the bloc without an agreement.
New Prime Minister Boris Johnson has repeatedly said that Britain will leave the EU on the October 31 deadline with or without an agreement, fuelling concern the nation is headed for a disorderly departure and fanning pessimism toward the pound. Sterling has fallen more than 7 per cent in the past three months, the worst performance among major developed-market currencies.
“The pound is at a much lower level now but I still think a no-deal exit would lead to significant volatility and we could be testing parity on a really bad outcome,” said Mr Harrison, who manages more than $10 billion in assets at BlackRock. “We will see this game of chicken continue through August and that’s likely negative for sterling,” he said about the deadlocked Brexit talks.
The pound fell 0.8 per cent to $1.2033 on Friday, its weakest closing level since the 1980s, after a report on the second quarter showed the UK economy shrank for the first time in six years. The data means it is likely the Bank of England will cut interest rates, according to Mizuho Bank.
The BOE said in November that the currency could fall even below $1 in an analysis on possible worst-case Brexit scenarios. Options-based calculations showed around a 6.4 per cent chance of pound-dollar parity in the next one year, markedly higher than 0.2 per cent in early March when prospects of a no-deal outcome were seemingly off the table.
Bloomberg
