'Devil played with my head', says teacher accused of rape

DUBAI // A Quran teacher told a policeman he raped a four-year-old boy because "the devil played with my head", a court heard today.

Prosecutors told the Criminal Court that the Bangladeshi HM, 24, was employed to give lessons to the children of four families who share a villa in Al Hamriya.

The Pakistani boy's father, 30-year-old ME, said the lessons took place in the villa's kitchen after Maghrib prayer for an hour every day except Thursdays and Fridays and that his son had been taking part in them for two months before the rape occured on July 18 this year.

Following that day's lesson, "My son came back to our room very frightened," said the boy's 25-year-old mother, SE. She said that when she asked him why he was afraid, he told her the teacher had ripped his trousers off and hurt him. The boy described the rape to her and said that it hurt him so much that at one point the teacher stopped and began touching him with his hand instead.

The mother told the boy's father and uncle who then caught the teacher and took him to the police station.

AA, a 45-year-old Yemeni policeman, said that when interrogated the teacher admitted raping the child, saying: "I was wrong and the devil played with my head."

A forensics report confirmed the boy had been raped and found traces of the teacher's DNA on his body.

The boy told prosecutors that the teacher had molested him with his hand twice before.

The teacher faces the death penalty if found guilty. He did not enter a plea when he appeared in the court. The case was adjourned to October 14 while the court assigns a lawyer to defend him.