Dubai // A mentally handicapped man was repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted by an employee at his father's company, a court heard yesterday. The 20-year-old Syrian was allegedly sexually assaulted and raped by AM, a 35-year-old Indian. The defendant could face the death penalty, if convicted. AM took advantage of the man's handicap to sexually exploit him, and repeatedly raped him in attacks from September to April, prosecutors say. The alleged attacks occurred while the owner of the company owner, NY, 60, was travelling out of the country.
While he was away, his older son ran the firm's day-to-day operations and took care of his younger brother. NY told the Dubai Court of First Instance that when he returned from a trip abroad in April, the father realised his younger son was acting differently. "When I resumed operations at the company, I saw him acting differently to how he usually does, and was always sticking to the defendant," he said in his statement to prosecutors.
After repeatedly asking what was wrong, his son told him he had been sexually molested by the defendant, the court was told. The father said his son had been raped in the office kitchen while his older son went to pray. The court received as evidence an evaluation from the Al Amal psychiatric clinic, where the alleged victim has been treated since 2002, confirming the patient suffers from "mild mental retardation as well as different behavioural disorders which require constant supervision and medication" and "is unable to care for himself and requires constant care and supervision for medication administration from family".
The elder son, identified as 36-year-old YN, told prosecutors that his brother always accompanied him on visits to the office, and that he only left his younger brother alone with AM when he went to pray. Giving evidence, the alleged victim told prosecutors the defendant molested him in the office kitchen. Prosecutors told the court the defendant had confessed to sexual assault, but in court yesterday he denied the assault and rape charges.
Judge Fahmy Mounir Fahmy adjourned the case until next month for a court-appointed lawyer to be assigned to the defendant. The court yesterday also heard closing arguments in another case of an alleged assault against an incapacitated victim. A hospital security guard was charged last month with sexually molesting a coma patient at Rashid Hospital. Prosecutors allege the 34-year-old Emirati guard, MI, molested the Emirati female in her intensive-care room.
A security guard at the hospital told prosecutors he was asked to investigate reports of an Arab man behaving suspiciously in one of the women-only rooms. He said he found the suspect inside the woman's room and asked him to leave. According to his statement, the defendant on one occasion told nurses that he was her husband, and another that he was her father. The court will issue its judgement next week.
@Email:amustafa@thenational.ae
