DUBAI // Three rapists posing as policemen stalked women in a black Hummer, a court heard today.
The men would drive up to the women as they left hotels late at night and introduce themselves as police officers, before taking their victims to the desert where they would rob and rape them before leaving them stranded.
The Criminal Court heard that the men approached one of their victims on December 3 last year as she left the Hyatt Regency hotel with her friend and tried to hail a taxi.
"They said they were police and offered to give us a lift," recalled the woman. The two climbed in and were then grabbed by two men who took their handbags before throwing the woman's friend out of the vehicle.
The men then drove her to the desert where they threatened her with an electric stun gun before taking turns to rape her.
They then abandoned her. "I walked until I reached a main road and took a taxi to my residence," said the woman, who filed a police complaint two days later.
Another woman, from Uzbekistan, testified that she and her friend had also been picked up by three men in a black Hummer, before being taken to the desert where they were raped and robed before being abandoned.
A security guard at the Hyatt Regency hotel, EA, 22, from Nigeria, testified that he had seen the black Hummer several times in front of the hotel and that the men inside it would pester women for sex.
"I was then informed by my boss that several women had complained of being picked up in black Hummer before being raped."
During prosecution investigations the men denied raping the women, claiming the sex was consensual.
At their trial, MH, 20, from Denmark, OQ, 19, from Egypt, and MS, 19, a Palestinian, denied charges of rape and robbery.
The case was adjourned to May 16.
salamir@thenational.ae
