Office worker 'held captive in brothel'

Police saved the 25-year-old Bangladeshi woman during a raid after her manager reported her missing when she failed to appear at work.

An office worker was kidnapped, sexually assaulted and held captive in a brothel by a man she met at a bus station, a court heard on Thursday.

Police saved the 25-year-old Bangladeshi woman during a raid on a brothel in Deira after her manager reported her missing when she failed to appear at work.

Her fellow Bangladeshi, MH, appeared in the Dubai Criminal Court of First Instance where he denied abducting her from the Dubai Central Bus Station in Bur Dubai on September 21. He also denied charges of sexual assault, threats and theft.

The woman told the court she had met MH at the bus station while she was trying to withdraw cash. "I was not able to use the cash machine and he helped me withdraw the money and then we exchanged numbers," she said.

She said that she had conversed and flirted with MH via texts and telephone calls before returning to the bus station the following weekend to meet her friend. Her friend did not appear.

Instead, the woman met MH, who offered to buy her dinner. She refused.

"I got into the taxi to go back but he jumped in and instructed the taxi to go to Deira," she said.

The taxi driver, she said, did not listen to her instructions despite her threats to call police.

She lost consciousness and woke up to find herself locked in an apartment with another woman.

MH was said to have walked in and demanded to have sex with her, before stealing her gold chain and threatening to sell her for Dh20,000 to work as a prostitute in which she was being held captive.

According to the police, five women and four men were found with the kidnapped woman during their raid on the brothel.

The court will reconvene on March 12.